Mana Gate
by Exess
Summary: When SG-1 gate to the world that in cannon would become the first alpha site. they instead find a technologicaly advanced planet. with someone on the planet willing to share their tech. who is this person? and what is their ultimate agenda?
1. after Solitudes

**SGC EARTH FEB, 10, 1998**

Carter was sitting in the control room watching the techs below working around the malp. When the finished their final checks and gave the thumbs up she nodded to Walter, Sergeant do your thing.

Chevron one encoded. Chevron one locked.

As he began calling out chevrons O'Neill walked up behind and asked. "What's going on kiddies?" Sam sighed knowing he was at the meeting but still asking anyway, she smirked because it was part of their game. "We're sending a malp to P3X-984 one of the planets not on the gould cartouche to see if it would be a viable alpha site. It was explained in the meeting sir."

"Just checking you know how things change from moment to moment in this place."

"Chevron seven locked." Cried out Walter, as the event horizon of an establishing wormhole exploded from the ancient "stone" ring. "Sending the malp through now.

Seconds later. "Telemetry coming through."

At first the room was pitch dark. Then a light source appeared causing lines of text to appear along the walls as well as a metallic voice started coming through the mic.

Daniel who had been quiet until then spoke up. "That's gould."

What's it saying?

"Hold on a minute."

After a canned speech the voice began again this time in another language.

"Daniel?" began O'Neill

"I didn't get it all but it said something about the Gould being unwelcome on the planet. I think?"

"You think?"

The voice started again in an English language this time.

"If you are goa'uld or harbor a goa'uld you have five minutes after the incoming wormhole shuts down to leave after that your lives are forfeit. There is no escape from this room for such as you. Any others are welcome to take refuge on this planet as long as you abide our laws. Have a good day."

It began again in German.

"Sounds friendly. Let's visit." Enthused Jack

"Indeed. You will however excuse me from joining you on this expedition." Deadpanned Teal'c.

The others turned to General Hammond.

Daniel started. "If for no other reason the writing on the wall could be like a rosetta stone. Different language same message."

Sam nodded. "I'd like to know how they could detect Gould sir."

Jack joked. "I'd babysit."

Hammond snorted. SG-1 minus Teal'c you have a go.

As SG-1 stepped through the event horizon once again they split up and began their assigned tasks. Dr. Jackson pulled out a video recorder and started recording the words on the wall; Sam started scanning the walls with one of her doodads. As O'Neill went to the malp to send any info recorded in the past twenty four hours.

As the wormhole disengaged the three humans were startled as the eyes of four statues lit up and sent out blue beams of light towards them. They were further startled and drew their weapons as one of them stepped off its pedestal and addressed them.

"NO GOA'ULD PRESENCE DETECTED STATE YOUR REASON FOR VISITING"

This was repeated of course in several languages. Before English came around.

"Uh" started O'Neill

"We are explorers looking for archeological and technological information as well as allies in our fight against the Goa'uld" Daniel cut in.

"SENDING REQUEST; WAITING FOR RESPONSE; FOLLOW ME."

The robot walked to a circular door which disengaged an airtight pressure seal and rolled open allowing the three travelers through.

In the center of a short circular hall a pleasant female voice said. "Scanning for nanite infestation and pathogen compatibility.

Sam's eyebrows hit her hairline while Daniel scratched his head and Jack looked questioningly at Sam "Carter?"

"I think they are checking to see if we're plague bearers sir."

"Two harmful viruses' detected countermeasures have been devised. Symbiotic bacteria have been categorized. You may proceed."

A second airlock opened and the three walked out to the outside world, what they saw filled them with awe and not a little concern.

**P3X-984**

The three members of SG-1 stood staring in the near distance stood a structure a seeming cross between a pyramid and a ziggurat colored a matt black with grey or silver highlights. And while that building was impressive it was not what truly stood out. What stood out to the different people was the normal buildings the ones seeming in decay and disrepair in the near distance.

In the far distance there were two structures. One a massive building shaped like a tall thin pyramid. Similar in shape to the Eiffel tower though solid and several orders of magnitude larger, As well as what looked like a massive floating lump of metal. Whose shape was hard to discern.

As they were about to comment, a sonic boom caused them to flinch their heads upwards. After their eyes darted around a small man shaped figure was eventually spotted by each of them. It approached and glided slower and slower they took in its appearance. It looked robotic or vaguely android in appearance using the same matte black and silver highlight color scheme as the intact buildings they have seen. The few lighted spots on the figure were two glowing spots for eyes the palms and feet which seemed to be for propulsion and stabilization in the air and a glowing ring in the center of its chest surrounding a dark circle or sphere.

AS the figure approached more details could be made out, subtle design elements suggested that the figure gliding to a landing before them was female. The black areas of the armor seemed ridged while the joints and more flexible parts of the human body was incased in a silver grey metal.

A young sounding female voice speaking in a Russian sounding accent addressed the robot guardian, before turning to them and addressing them in English.

"Greetings travelers and welcome to Terra Nova. I apologize for not removing my helmet. However since the translation program I am using needs it to remain on it will remain on. So what brings you to my planet?"

Dr. Jackson being the defacto politician answered her. "Exploration mostly, as well as looking for allies and trade partners in our defense of our homeworld against the goa'uld. We are known to most of the galaxy as the Tau'ri."

The figure stood pensively for a moment before coming to a decision. "Well, let me give you a tour and afterwards we can sit down and talk."

"My name is Ember." The woman stated as she led the team over to a metal pad with a short pedestal. "Have you used ring transporters before?"

With a nod and other noises of confirmation Ember gestured them to stand inside a circle while she punched something in at the pedestal. Seconds later the familiar rings erupted from the ground around them and they were incased in light and whisked away.

The rings lowered around them revealing a short squat building in front of them Ember walked over to it and touching a panel on the side activated a display screen. "This is one of this planets planetary shield emitters it produces a roughly hexagonal dome directly above, combined with others around the world any direct bombardment of the planet will be reduced by about 98% any leaks would generally occur around the edges of the shield where this and another one would overlap. Our science hasn't been able to completely get rid of this flaw but at 98% our leaders believed the coverage was enough.

Carter was starting to ask questions about the tech, when Ember cut her off. "Please save all questions until after the tour." She then went back to the ring platform followed by SG-1 and punched in another destination.

When the thrumming rings descended around them SG-1 stared in awe around them a vast door stood before them and they were standing on the outside of the giant black floating shape. Ember went over to the door and after punching in a code the door opened letting them in. inside was row after row of small glowing pedestals with a fist sized black ball on top of them.

"You are standing in what was dubbed the Darksteel reactor. This floating building, ship can produce enough power for the whole world, millions of people, all because of this." She picked up one of the small lumps of black causing the pedestal beneath it to go dark. "The darksteel ingot, Darksteel in and of itself, is virtually indestructible, that's why when we found out how to tap into the type of power we use the ingots aren't destroyed like previous materials." Replacing the lump of metal she walks out of the building.

Upon exiting the reactor SG-1 saw something that they had missed before and caused them to grip their weapons more tightly. "Is that a Ha'tak pyramid ship?" Daniel asked incredulously.

"Yes we hijacked it from our former god. Would you like to see it?" with reluctant consent the team SG-1 agreed and the ringed down to the ship.

As the tour of the Ha'tak commenced Ember told the story of how it came to be in their possession.

"Frankly if it wasn't for the Tau'ri we wouldn't have been able to overthrow our system lord."

Dr. Jackson replaced the dying battery of the video recorder that had been running all this time.

"Our god whose name I won't even try to pronounce was a minor functionary of Ra. He found this world quite by accident and seeded it with us, one of the last to come from the homeworld; earth, right before the Tau'ri uprising against Ra.

In his anger Ra led a bloody crusade across the galaxy to instill rules that would prevent this from happening again. Our god kept this world secret and when his forces were called to muster he left the garrison here woefully under strength. We threw off our Jaffa overseers and waited until our god sent for reinforcements through the gate. We sent our people through and joined his Jaffa pretending to be Jaffa. These old hyperdrives took decades to get to their destination, so it was fifty years until our task force was needed, and then another fifty as they simulated the disappearance of this Ha'tak and brought it back here.

Since our god was killed and he and his most loyal Jaffa were the only ones to know the location of this planet we have lived in isolation until now."

With the tour of the Ha'tak over, and a very happy Carter, Ember advised her that the ship was several centuries out of date, and the newer ships would be a much bigger threat than this one would pose. Slightly reigned in Carter was still happy for this was a source of tech that might soon be available to the SGC and Earth.

One more ring transport and their guide introduced them to the Darksteel Citadel a building designed to hold millions of citizens. They entered the building near the base and took a fast elevator to a floor near the top of the mega structure.

Entering a meeting room no matter how comfortable is still in the military psyche time to get down to brass tacks. SG-1 knew nothing else would be handed out until some agreement was made about the relationship between her people and theirs.

Ember asked for info on the policies and practices of Earth and the SGC much to the relief of SG-1, since she didn't ask for anything that would compromise the security of earth.

Jack exclaimed "Oh for crying out loud are we going to talk to your superior face to face or are we going to talk to a mask all day!"

"Jack!" both Carter and Dr. Jackson exclaimed.

"What I want to talk to someone in authority not some drone tinker toy."

Ember got up and walked over to a wall where she tapped the wall a few times causing it to light up and then settle down in a muted glow.

Then the face mask of the helmet retracted and the helmet split somehow as a girl, looking much too young, pulled it off her head and set it on the table.

She began speaking in her not quite Russian language followed a half second later in English coming from the wall to their side.

The petite blond girl, looking no older then sixteen, if you were being generous, began.

"Turn on your recording device for what I am about to say is hard and I do not want to go over it again.

Each person in my society was born into a class, and rarely if ever were they allowed to rise above their station. Only in the most rare instance was this possible and then only the descendants of the first born male could benefit for he would enter a marriage with a female in station above the family.

My family was amongst the lowest ranks we got little education and less opportunity to advance than most. In desperation my family, basically sold me to a scientist of much greater rank. Many of the younger boys and girls in the lower classes did similar things all in the name of helping their family rise in the ranks.

For many years I waited generally doing menial tasks around the labs until one day I was chosen for a genetic test. The test improved my looks according to the ones who designed it changing my straight black hair to this wavy blond softening my face making me appear more youthful and increasing my bust size a little. However it did have some side effects that were undesirable, that I won't go into at this time.

The experiment was a failure, I was a failure to my family, but I could still be used as free labor for the labs and that was my life until a sickness spread through us test subjects and some underpaid minion was called to collect new subjects for a new experiment. A quota had to be filled and I was healthy and my deformities; my shame was well hidden. So I was chosen as a replacement for one that was sick.

I was injected with what was later called the answer to society's prayers. An immortality serum after a few days of pain I was effectively immortal all tests done to me caused me to heal or otherwise shrug off damage to my body. It was even found out that I did not seem to age.

My dejection transformed to elation. The family of this scientist that created this formula would advance in class as would mine. My brother was immediately engaged to a woman of higher class and the formula was mass produced and handed out to the populous. The children were given to the care of the daycare service Myr; a type of robot we had created. And everyone injected themselves with the serum.

I should have died; if I had been a normal human I would have died, just like everyone of my race. Everyone died a horrible painful death. The worst was the children. The programing of the robots would not let anyone but the parent or guardian or some emergency personnel access to the children eventually they starved to death.

I spent the next decades finding and burning whatever bodies I could and eventually learning everything I could about everything my people have done. Eventually I convinced the computers that being the only survivor entitled me to be in charge of all the facilities of the planet I learned all I could and erased and destroyed all genetic engineering information in our database.

For the last couple centuries I've been here alone developing and adapting technowledgy for the ones who come through the gate who are worthy.

I'm hoping that that's you. If it is, all the tech of this world is yours the only price I'll put on it is companionship. I want to walk your world; see it's people, explore its places, enjoy other cultures."

SG-1 answered that in order to do that the stargate would have to be disclosed to the general public.

"I understand that disclosure is something your government doesn't want to do, but how long before you become too big a thorn in the collective Goa'uld's side. Before they retaliate? How long before some system lord sees a planet full of slaves, easy to conquer."


	2. Tera Nova

**SGC EARTH THE NEXT DAY**

General Hammond folded his hands on the table for the post mission debriefing. He nodded a Dr. Jackson to start.

"Culturally the people of Terra Nova; that's what the civilization called their planet, lived in blood ascendancy. Only certain families live at the top or ruling elite. Only they got the benefit of a full education. When they died, the only survivor had to learn most of their tech from the ground up.

When dealing with her, I think our negotiators need to realize two things one she has been isolated for, according to her, hundreds of years. And secondly, I think she is still suffering from survivor's guilt."

General Hammond turned. "Your tech analysis Captain Carter?"

"Her tech at first glance is hard to pin down. The one thing I noticed is the so called indestructible metal she calls Darksteel. While not technically indestructible very few things seem to affect it. She told me of all the things she knows about. The first is the unstable event horizon of an establishing wormhole. The second she knows of would be a black hole. The only other thing that seems to affect it is the ring platform and that works like the stargate by changing it to energy and then changing it back.

The second bit of tech is her power suit. She told me of several variants and even gave a quick overview of them.

The first one; the one she was wearing is the Darksteel version of the sub orbital suit. It is able to get to low orbit stay there for a short period of time and then descend safely to the surface. Apparently Ember was working on a satellite when we gated in. which is why she was wearing that particular suit.

The second suit would be the general battle suit. While not able to fly as well or as fast as the orbital suit it has the general repulsor's to do so. The repulsor can also be used as a weapon firing kinetic force like a ranged punch, greater than a prize fighter.

Its secondary weapons are modular. A couple of wrist mounted energy weapons. Namely, a less powerful but rapid fire plasma weapon, based on the staff weapon.

As well as a stun gun type weapon reverse engineered from a goa'uld weapon called the zat'ni'katel, or zat for short. This weapon fires a painful electrical charge that incapacitates on the first hit, kills on the second, and disintegrates on the third.

The third energy weapon has no effect against biological targets, but does massive damage to forcefields, and any other powered unit. She calls it a disrupter, because it disrupts energy flow, literally stopping it in whatever device someone is using. There are others but all of those are even more specialized than the disrupter.

There are shoulder mounted ordinance weapons. The first two are the primary weapons. The first is called the shredder. A solid bar of metal is the ammunition. The weapon cuts a wafer thin disk and launches it at near sonic speeds. It's a rapid fire weapon that can literally shred an unarmored target. And each cigar sized block of ammo is worth a thousand shots, with up to seven extra blocks to reload.

The second main support weapon is a micro missile launcher. Each missile is also the size of a cigar, and can be fired at a target image saved by the HUD. Range is the only drawback. But is still remarkable at almost a mile. The power of the explosion is impressive as well, using naquadah to enhance the yield. The missile can easily take out a death glider, and does real damage to even an al'kesh's shield, letting three or four missiles take out an al'kesh.

A third weapon of note is a type of grenade launcher that fires a variety of micro grenades. Including, but not limited to, frag, stun, and incendiary.

The final feature of all suits is a forcefield generator. Superior to the one Apophis uses because it allows the user to move while shielded.

Other suites drop most of the weapons to be able to operate in extreme environments such as extreme heat, or cold, or even deep underwater."

The general nodded as Capt. Carter took a drink and continued.

"The next tech is the one I want to get it's her power generator. She calls it Mana but that is just a title, what it really is, is zero point energy. Ember's people have found a way to safely generate zero point energy without creating those harmful particles that are theorized to occur when the power is generated. That energy is then stored in a capacitor, or battery if you will, until it is needed. This tech is so far above naquadah power generator tech it's not funny. With just one of her Darksteel ingots and a capacitor. This command will never have to worry about power again.

The next round of tech is space fleet tech. her people have reverse engineered and improved everything except hyperdrive tech. Which we can easily remove from an al'kesh, and bring here to study. Their sub light drives can go point six light speed, and are highly maneuverable. The internal and external inertial dampers are better than their engines allowing them to stop even with their engine at full burn.

Embers people made their hulls out of an alloy of naquadah titanium, and trinium. Trinium is a metal much tougher and lighter than steel."

General Hammond asked. "Why not make their hulls out of Darksteel if it's so indestructible?"

"I asked the same question and the answer I got was. Because if the ship was ever hijacked or stolen we would be able to destroy it or make it self-destruct."

The general nodded at the logic of that statement.

"The ship weapons are generally larger versions of the handheld ones. Plasma cannons on par, but with a slightly faster rate of fire to the al'kesh, as well as disruptor weapons to shred enemy's shields. With missile launcher's as backup.

The only thing is the planet doesn't have is capital ships. Except of course for the ha'tak. It has two smaller ships, the thopter, which is a fighter; it has retractable wings similar to the tomcat plane and can fit through the stargate. And the ornithopter which has a modular frame. The modules dictate what it does anything from mid-range bomber, to cargo ship, to search and rescue, and law enforcement, medical, fire response. They seemed to think about everything.

Both ships also have two types of shield generators. The first one is based off the goa'uld shields. The second is a version of their repulsor tech. extending only inches from the hull and in small hexagonal sections. It's a very small version of the next tech I'm going to bring up.

The planetary shield generators. Each shield generator stands on the surface of the planet and creates a shield above the atmosphere blocking all physical attacks and most energy attacks with some bleed through around the edges of each shield.

This tech alone would mean we would have to disclose the stargate because we would have to put them all over the planet.

Ember's planetary system is filled with defense satellites. These satellites are grouped in sevens. The center one is a powerful shield generator who's shield surrounds all satellites in a group. One of the surrounding satellites is a sensor and communicator. All the rest are various weapon satellites. All designed to dissuade any undesirable from entering their system. Or at least not letting them approach the planet unannounced.

And then there is their medical tech. The most powerful being a refined sarcophagus called the regenerator. Apparently the sarcophagus tech is flawed and causes mental instability. Well they fixed that.

Another thing they have is some kind of immune booster they developed from studying goa'uld blood. "

Carter blew out an explosive breath with wide eyes as she finished still overwhelmed with the shear diversity of the tech on the table.

General Hammond turned to O'Neill. "And what is your assessment colonel?

Jack sat there clenching his fists with a huge frown on his face. "It's perfect. I don't trust it. Even if it is the last person on the planet. Her story. Something about it doesn't add up. I don't trust her. And I don't think we should form an alliance with her."

"Care to elaborate colonel?" asked the general.

"Indeed; I too would also like to know why you would bypass such a powerful ally such as this one seems to be. Especially when she seems eager to help you to such an extent." Droned the ever stoic Teal'c.

"That's jus it 'T' I can't put my finger on it but something isn't rite. Something doesn't add up and it's driving me crazy. Maybe it's just that she wouldn't show her face most of the time. I don't know."

"You know she did that because of the translator program in her helmet." Began Carter. "That reminds me. Despite Daniel's ever expanding vocabulary that translator program could be very useful as well, once a language is deciphered and imputed into it." Carter said.

"Well colonel unless you can give me some concrete evidence why we can't negotiate with her I'll give my findings to the president and we'll work from there."

O'Neill gently shook his head no.

"Well then rest up, you have a mission on the 13'Th to planet P3X-989"


	3. Tin man

**SGC-EARTH FEB 13, 1998**

SG-1 heading down to the stargate on their mission to P3X-989, pass by the observation/ briefing room and see a familiar armored figure.

Colonel O'Neill calls out "Hay I thought we disarmed everyone who came through the gate."

Ember turns to the man and replies. "This suit has no weaponry and since I do not yet know your language I brought the only mobile translator I have."

O'Neill just grunts and continues down the stairs. Eventually to step through the stargate.

**TIME SKIP Com-traya!**

SG-1 Returns through the gate. Causing those still at the negotiating table to get up curious as to who the unscheduled activation was from.

As SG-1 walked down the ramp Ember charged down the stairs.

"Who are you, and what have you done to the real SG-1."

All the humans looked around in confusion. Jack's temper flared as he yelled "WE ARE SG-1!"

"No you're not! Your robots; okay androids maybe, but still mechanical."

General Hammond looked from his team to the new ally. "Sorry SG-1 you'll have to be disarmed and escorted under guard to the medical bay to double check."

"Oh for crying out loud I know who I am!" began Jack.

"Still sir it's policy." Soothed Carter.

"I know. I know. I'm going." Said Jack as he disarmed himself and went to the infirmary. Followed by guards and the armored figure of Ember.

**Time skip.**

A drooping SG-1 was being led to the stargate. "I'll send a team through shortly. To back you up." Said Hammond.

"No don't risk anyone else." Reprimanded Jack.

Ember spoke. "I'll go with them my armor and personal shields should protect me from whatever happened to the original team. And my sensors will give me an advantage in finding them. Besides if these robots have some kind of hidden programing the original team may not ever be recovered otherwise."

O'Neill objected loudly. But Hammond pointed out he had no control over their guest and all five went through the gate.

On the other side SG-1 quickly recovered as Ember stood there reading what her scans were showing her.

"Wow this place is falling apart." Ember said

"Yes Com-traya 11000 years, only me to fix it, need more people, which is why I made you; better."

Look Harlen we don't want to be better we want our bodies back." Began Jack.

Ember cut in "Harlen, wait a moment. You said you needed more workers to fix this place. I can provide that. However you will need to release the real SG-1 before I will negotiate with you."

Harlen stood there a while worrying his hands." Workers to fix? Humans willing to be made better."

"Not exactly. My race has made robots as well. Two types the Arc-bound; which were inherently flawed. And the Myr. I can have the Myr brought here and programed to run off your power source. And fix your complex.

Harlen fidgeted a little more before he agreed. Come. The real SG-1 is this way! Com-traya!

**Time skip.**

After a few minor repairs and a near disaster was averted. The human SG-1 returned through the gate. Leaving Ember, the robot SG-1 and a second Teal'c, this one without the larval goa'uld mind to make him crazy behind.

Ember turned to Harlen. "I will go to my world and bring several myr with me as well as a myr turbine to make more until your needs are met. The turbine will have a population cap of three thousand. And won't make more unless another myr is destroyed.

I will also bring some myr land shaper's to accelerate the terraforming of the surface."


	4. there but for the grace of god?

**P3R-233 FEB, 20, 1998**

SG-1 stepped out of the Stargate into a large dark room. Each member of the team is looking around.

"Good morning, Campers!" exclaims Jack. As the gate shuts down. Danny is filming as usual. Looking at some large pipes. The Camera reads 120 min., and SP REC.

"There is damage here. It appears to be done by Goa'uld weaponry. I do not believe this battle took place recently." Teal'c stated

"No bodies." Jackson agreed

Carter asked "Daniel, you recognize any of these symbols?" Danny walks over to Sam.

"No. This place is defiantly Alien. Wonder what's behind curtain number two?" Asked Daniel nodding at an archway.

Sam points her flash light to where Danny is looking.

"Take Carter and check it out Daniel." Commanded Jack.

Danny starts moving fast towards wherever he discovered, and Sam is trying to catch up.

"Whoa ... Teal'c, you ever seen anything like this before?" Jack asks as he points his flash light on a spiky thing. Teal'c gets a kind of scared look on his face, and he mumbles; something.

"We must return to Earth as quickly as possible."

"Why? What is it?"

"It is the symbol of Korosh'ni; it is for any Goa'uld or Jaffa who may pass through the gate. Loosely translated it means, 'turn back'"

"Does it elaborate?"

"It is placed on world that Goa'uld destroyers have wiped out and contaminated. This planets entire surface will be in your terms, radioactive."

"Aw..."

"No one will be left alive. This place is not safe."

Danny and Sam are in a bright room, with a long island table with pots, and lots of stuff an archeologist would love!

"I think this is a lab." Dr. Jackson enthused

"How do you know?"

"These are things they brought back from the Stargate to study, there all tagged! This is a Turkish mask. This is a clay cone from Lagash with cuneiform symbols on it."

O'Neill called out. "Carter, Daniel." Right before he walks in.

"We found a souvenir shop sir." Carter began.

Jack interrupted her. "Where out of here."

"What? Why? This place is a treasure chest of artifact, of diverse human cultures." Danny asked.

"I don't want to hear about it. Let's go." Jack said as he turns around and leaves, along with Teal'c and Carter starts to follow.

"You don't want to hear it." Danny grumps, then, quickly takes off his backpack. He starts filling his pack with the items of the island. He picks up a silver, red and blue, little machine type thing and looks at it. Beside him a mirror appears in a rock. Danny carries the machine over to the mirror. He stands in front of it and waves his hand, only he doesn't appear in the mirror.

Jack can be heard in the back ground. "Daniel! We're leaving. let's go!"

Daniel act as if he doesn't hear Jake then slowly touches the mirror. A bright light burst out and in a flash the machine is on the other side of the mirror, which then promptly falls to the floor. He quickly takes his hand away. He stares surprised at the machine on the floor on the other side but the weird lack of machine on this side.

Jackson runs out of the room towards the gate. "Guys, I need a hand with this thing, it's to heavy but we have to take it back."

"Danny there is radiation here. We can come back later, after we know for sure how bad it is here."

Danny reluctantly agreed.

**EARTH SGC FEB, 20, 1998**

"I tell you the device was in my hand, and when I touched the mirror thing it was on the other side and fell to the floor." Said Danny as if trying to persuade someone to believe in the tooth fairy.

"I believe you Daniel. However until your boss allows a team back through the gate either in your peoples radiation suites, or some of my peoples radiation hardened armors, it will be a mystery that will have to wait." Replied Ember as she walked from the lab where she had delivered a piece of her tech to the almost drooling scientist.

As they entered the meeting room just off of the general's office, Ember spoke up again. "Ah general, I realize that the time frame we had agreed upon was between five and twenty years. But I think I know of a way to shorten that time frame safely."

The general nodded. "Go ahead and tell me."

Ember moved to the table pulling a small device from her belt that looked like a plus sign that was raised in the middle, with a small depression as if to hold a golf ball. The circle lit up and immediately above it a hologram appeared showing a futuristic building.

"Centuries ago on our planet my ancestors found this building, it was from here that we got our understanding of the mana energy, what you call zero point energy." The image switched to a crystal like object glowing yellow orange faintly. "This first mana battery holds ten thousand times as much power as one of my mana capacitors. And was the primary power source for the installation. Our scientists removed it and studied it and eventually created the Darksteel reactor and Darksteel ingot generators. The mana generators."

"My proposal is this. I bring one of my sensor satellite's through the gate and using it's stealth capabilities to its fullest we map your world. Locating all devices above your current tech level. No matter where they are or how deep they are buried. That way, if it exists, you get your hands on it and your scientists can say. 'Hay aliens are real."

The general sat and thought for a minute looking from the hologram slowly changing from various techs the alien before him had studied. "I'll bring it up with my superiors but I like the idea."

Ember left the hologram projector on the table as she and Daniel left the room.

Entering Daniel's study surrounded with the dust of the past ember smiled to herself as Danny prattled on about different cultures. She interrupted as she lifted a picture from his desk. "So, who is this lovely woman?" She spoke in her language as she had opened her mask a short while before.

"That is Sha're, my wife, her and her brother Skaara were taken as host's to the goa'uld's known as Amonet, and Klorel."

Ember swallowed thickly. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"That is why I'm here to fight the goa'uld and get them back if I can."

She responded. "That tech I'm sorry to say I don't have. But if it exists somewhere I will do my best to help you find it."

**SGC MEETING ROOM FEB, 22, 1998**

Several people were looking down at the active stargate as a large metal ball was floating through it. Clearing the edges of the gate by about a foot once through it hovered in the gate room.

Shortly after came the now common form of an armored Ember. Seconds later the gate disengadged.

After a few nervous minutes the roof of the gate room was retracted to show a long missile tube let over from the nuclear missile silo it used to be. Once the missile silo doors far overhead were open the sensor satellite quietly ascended the shaft and entered orbit.

A few hours later several people were gathered around the table not the least of which were several high ranking military and government people. The holographic emitter made a sound drawing the attention of all those present. After a few more minutes Ember made an announcement.

"Everything that my sensors can pick up has done so. Would you like the tech breakdown by most advanced or easiest to get to?"

After a brief discussion it was decided to look at the easiest to get to first.

Embers armored head nodded. "Very well." A holo globe appeared over the table showing the earth in a yellow the oceans in blue, with red dots scattered across the globe.

"This point is the stargate where we are. Obviously the easiest to get to." This statement received a few chuckles.

"There is a second stargate here as well as several other minor technologies."

The general consensus was that that was area fifty one the research area. At which Ember nodded.

The globe rotated again to a point just north of Seattle. "There is a working ring platform as well as other small things at this location."

A tech took down the latitude and longitude of the spot and ran off to do research.

A spot in south America was next. "This registers as sarcophagus tech but much more advanced."

As an aid took down the coordinates, some nervous glances were exchanged around the table, for they knew the violence that was prone in that area.

The holo globe spun to show Africa. "There are many small pieces scattered throughout the desert here. The most notable and intact is this. A small ship no longer in use by the goa'uld and similar to a Tel'tak cargo ship. As well as a ring platform a short distance away in an Egyptian tomb. My thinking the ship is some kind of escape ship that was never used."

"Farther north. In England there are two goa'uld stasis jars. Whether they are still viable or not. I do not know."

Nervous looks went around the room at this point because having a goa'uld with modern human knowledge was a very bad thing.

Ember stood pensive for a while until someone asked if she was done.

"I'm not sure how to explain this next one. Under England is a sort of dead spot. So how do I explain that there is nothing there when there is nothing supposed to be there? I think it is some sort of cloaking field because I'm registering a dead spot. Sort of? I think?"

Glances were again exchanged around the table as Ember shook herself and continued.

"Now for the best one." The holo globe rotated until Antarctica was prominent. "About a mile under the ice here. There is a building very similar to one found on my planet. It is where my people got their best tech."

"Aside from other bits and pieces here and there that I doubt are worth our time that's my report."

**SGC TECH LAB FEB 24, 1998**

Most of the teams who had gone out to recover the alien tech had by now reported success. A goa'uld named Seth was cooling his heels in a detention tank far below. The Isis and Osiris jars were recovered as well.

Teams were sent to "discover" the tech of aliens. Pulling in well respected and thoroughly background checked individuals. Bringing lots of documenting equipment and setting someone up to "accidently" activate the ancient tech in front of the camera.

However all those thoughts fled from the minds of everyone who was a husband that had ever pissed off their wife. Or anyone who had ever been a lot of trouble in their childhood as a feminine screech echoed through the halls.

"YOU DID WHAT?!"

A very angry Ember was staring daggers and breathing flame towards a smirking Jack O'Neill.

Ember was yelling at Jack with her helmet off as half a second later a translation came through a box on a nearby table. "Let me get this straight. You destroyed what was possibly the only protection a primitive planet had against the goa'uld. Instead of trying to find out how it worked or find the creators of it to get them to turn it off. And then you just left? Without even trying to fix it or send someone back to fix it.

That is probably the worst tactical decision I've ever heard!"

Ember grabbed her helmet and crammed it on her head as the metal folded and expanded much like the bird headed jaffa of Ra. She then stormed out of the lab scattering many open mouthed scientists in her wake.

Jack finally caught up to her as she was railing at general Hammond about his subordinate's flawed tactical decision.

"Hay!" began Jack

"Just give me the coordinates and as your ally I'll go fix your mistake." Interrupted an irate armor clad female.

General Hammond turned to Jack. "I'm sorry colonel I have to side with Ember here on this one. While I'm not questioning your command decisions we have not sent anyone to clean up after that debacle."

He strode out of his office into the control room. "Walter. Give Ember here the coordinates to Cimmeria, then dial the gate."

The man nodded and began the sequence.

"Hay I'm coming too." Blurted Jack as he tore out of the room to suit up. Sam and Daniel who had noticed the commotion as an irate woman stormed through the SGC and had followed along quickly followed behind.

Barely two minutes later the gang minus Teal'c was again on the planet Cimmeria. As a representative approached them, the stargate activated again.

A squad of fifteen Jaffa stepped through the Vikings started chanting. "THOR! THOR! THOR!" while SG-1 dove for cover, and began shooting at the jaffa.

The Jaffa began shooting back causing the peasants to scatter. Ember ignited her boot thrusters and hovered in the air startling the jaffa as her palm repulsor lit up and the armor's forcefield activated.

Sending blue white bolts of kinetic force pummeling the jaffa and knocking them around. While occasionally breaking bones these weapons did little to dissuade the jaffa from firing back at the greatest perceived threat. Namely the flying form.

Meanwhile after the moment of shock wore off SG-1 returned to killing the jaffa.

After it was all over Jack walked arrogantly up to Ember and said. "And that's how we do it at the SGC."

The gate activated again this time sending Teal'c through.

Ember turned to Jack and stated. "If it wasn't for me you wouldn't be here to do it like at the SGC." Besides this isn't a battle suit the only weapon I have on me is the disruptor, which we were studying. And while that would have caused the staff weapons to stop working I decided instead to be a distraction so your team could take them down quicker."

Jacks eyes narrowed as he stared at the glowing eyes of an otherwise featureless faceplate. "Fine let's just get this over with. Danny boy your up."

After talking to the village elder and being led to an obelisk they were transported into a room which Embers sensors claimed was far underground.

Ember watched while the members of SG-1 fumbled through the tests of the Asgard. While she instead paid more attention to what her sensors were telling her.

When finally Thor appeared as he truly was and he told them that he had issues he had to take care of. Though he would be able to return to repair the device within a week Ember finally spoke up.

"Excuse me Thor but you said that you had issues to deal with. Are those issues an enemy by any chance and if so how does that enemy compare to the goa'uld."

The diminutive grey figure blinked twice. Then disappeared as a hologram appeared of the replicator.

It was a small bug like thing barely a foot in length made up of small metallic blocks.

As he explained their form and function Ember rubbed her gauntlet along her chin.

"I think I may have something that will give you an advantage against them." She finally spoke.

The hologram returned to Thor who blinked.

Ember opened a small port in her gauntlet causing a hologram to spring into being of a roughly humanoid thing consisting of large lumpy blocks of metal connected together by thick strands of energy.

"This is an Arc-bound an AI my race had invented, their bodies were modular so any arc-bound that was damaged could join with any other. However this caused programing errors so we created this. A disruptor beam, it disrupts all known transfer of energy."

Thor turned away for a moment and when he turned back he stated that he would be there within the hour.


	5. WITHIN THE SERPENT'S GRASP PT 1

**SGC EARTH MARCH 6, 1998**

"Senator Kinsey Is an ass!" one of the scientists exclaimed as he was packing up his equipment.

"First he says he doesn't like secret military organizations. Even though we already have plans to disclose the stargate. He says we don't have enough returns for the operating cost of the gate even though we have all of the Terra Novin tech virtually laid out before us. And then he goes and says we have plenty of tech on the earth to study, but he doesn't want the alien satellite in orbit that found all of it."

Ember nodded in silent agreement. She had thought for sure that she would be able to help these people but how can you help someone who refuses to see fact. Even when it blows up in their face.

After clipping all the hardware that had been scattered around the room being studied back onto her suit. She walked slowly from the lab listening to the bickering scientists. A pair of soldiers took step beside her as she plodded toward the elevator.

Passing the control room to begin activation of the stargate she over hears Major Davis say. "Sir, I think we may have a situation. We just spoke with Cairn Deep Space Radar, they picked up two large blips passing Saturn. They are heading towards Earth.

Hammond asks. "Any identification yet?"

"No, not yet sir. NASA is just re positioning Hubble right now. We should be able to get a closer look."

Ember speaks up. "My satellite is still in orbit I can get a picture for you."

The two look at each other. Major Davis says. "I don't think we need your help."

General Hammond interrupts. "But we'll take it."

Ember nods and pulls of a holo emitter from her belt and places it on the table while creating an uplink to her satellite. Within seconds a picture is formed.

"What are those?" Major Davis exclaims.

"Having been out of circulation for a couple centuries my best guess would be the latest version of Ha'tak. The older versions were just pyramids. These have that jagged ring around it."

Hammond immediately leaves to apprise the president.

A short while later he returns and addresses those assembled including SG-1 who were about to send off Teal'c in standard jaffa costume. "The President is mobilizing every branch, including the guard and reserve. The Air Force efforts will be coordinated through this facility. I need this room converted to a command and control center, ASAP. Make sure we have a link to AF-Sat Com, for encrypted communications to all Air force bases, and to NASA."

A short while later Major Davis returns. "Sir we have nuclear ordinance ready to launch at your command."

"That will not work general Hammond. A Ha'tak's shields can easily withstand a primitive weapon such as that." Began Teal'c

Major Davis began a seething retort only to be cut off by Ember. "How about I give you options?"

"How so?" asks the general.

"My people have done extensive research into the operating systems of the Ha'tak we stole. And we believe we have an effective countermeasure. However I would have to go home to get a Thopter to fly up there to implement the weapon. That way if your nukes fail you have something no matter how thin to fall back on."

The general nodded. "Walter! Dial up Terra Nova. Ember needs to leave ASAP."

"Teal'c would you join me I may need your advice in the upcoming battle."

Teal'c nodded and intoned "I would be honored."

The gate activated in its customary blast of energy. And the two walked through the event horizon.

As the wormhole disengaged Ember called out an override code to allow Teal'c to not be destroyed as she headed out to the ring platform just outside the gate building.

Ringing up to one of the top floors in the Darksteel Citadel she went to the armor bay first to switch into a different set one she might need later Teal'c watched, impassive as she kitted out her weapons.

After watching as the armor was removed and replaced Teal'c was impressed though he didn't show it.

Getting the program downloaded to a crystal and choosing a pair of disruptors a plasma cannon and micro missile launcher for her thopter she hopped into the cockpit and gestured for Teal'c to join her.

Flying out of the Citadel and down to the gate building she activated a program to remote dial the gate and opened a wormhole back to Tau'ri space.

Teal'c was surprised when instead of the SGC they emerged inside a Goa'uld cargo room complete with sarcophagus. The few jaffa immediately began opening fire on the invading ship while Ember used her highly mobile plasma cannon to take them out.

"Did you miss dial the gate Ember." Was Teal'c quiet question.

"I don't think so. I think when two gates are close together the one with the; What do the Tau'ri call it? Ah! The DHD will take precedence."

Teal'c nodded. " Very likely."

At that time the sarcophagus opened and Klorel stepped out.

Ember popped the canopy and zated him.

"Teal'c do you know of anyone who might be willing to help us."

"I may. Stay here and guard the goa'uld." Teal'c went over to a communication control and spoke into it.

Ember in the meanwhile used her armor's scanner to find and remove all tech hidden on Klorel's person.

Teal'c returned. " My former master Bra'tac and a few other free jaffa will be here shortly.

Ember nodded as she began rapidly interfacing with the Ha'tak's computers.

When the jaffa arrived a quick war counsel was convened.

"Apophis is waiting until Klorel emerges from the sarcophagus before we attack the Tau'ri. We had planned to take a small wing of death gliders to attack his pilots to make him think Klorel was attacking him to usurp him."

Ember nodded then shook her head. "New plan take this communicator and the snake here to the pel'tac. When you signal me, I will lock you in and override all ship controls. Then open all doors and airlocks venting everything to space. At the same time I will transmit the original virus to Apophis's ship opening all doors including the one to the pel'tac.

Teal'c exchanged glances with the other jaffa before they all turned and nodded. Teal'c snapped closed his serpent guard helm and bent to drag Klorel with the help of another jaffa.

Ember jumped into her cockpit and called out. "And send any jaffa you see my way I'll take care of them." She patted the ship as the canopy closed and the shields turned on.

Teal'c marched through the Ha'tak following Bra'tac and half carrying Daniel's brother in law Skaara, and the goa'uld Klorel. As they passed other jaffa they were directed to the cargo room to repel boarders. They were challenged at the pel'tac but with them carrying the Jaffa's god they didn't argue for long and soon turned back to their duties. At which point the free jaffa lowered their staff weapons and fired killing the bridge crew.

Teal'c removed the hidden communicator and signaled his ally.

"What of the Tau'ri?" Asked Teal'c.

"Their weapons were ineffective against this ship." Answered Bra'tac.

Teal'c heard the sound of thumping throughout the ship as the doors to the pel'tac closed and locked while all the others opened to space.

Teal'c communicated with ember as she tried to upload the virus to Apophis's ship. He heard her swear as the virus failed to work. She told him she would ring over to Apophis's ship to try to upload the virus from the pel'tac.

Just before she ringed over Teal'c called her again to tell her that the ship was moving and it was not under their power. Her answer was not encouraging in that she said she could do nothing and had to take out the threat the other Ha'tak posed.

Several jaffa stood in the ring room. One was behind the armored figure as it ringed over to his gods ship. He saw the figure lift her left arm and a blue electric bolt similar to a zat'ni'katel fired and hit one of his companions. They all lowered their staff weapons and began firing into the figure, only to see their blasts stop short by a blue field. Her right arm lifted and began firing smaller faster and more accurate plasma bolts. Three bolts each hit two jaffa to her right.

On her left shoulder a short rod moved and a metallic sound came from it as four more jaffa screamed and jerked before falling to the floor. Small round razor thin disks studding their armor in places. A small tube on her right shoulder swiveled to point behind her in his direction, before he could call a warning a tiny black ball fired from the tube and his world erupted in fire.

The noise attracted attention from the jaffa in the hallway, which were on a heightened alert because of the odd behavior from the other ship. And they charged in staves blazing. The high energy blasts were draining shield integrity, but not fast enough as more shredder ammo spun forth slicing through thin spots in the armor and mangling any exposed flesh it encountered. The plasma gauntlet answered much more accurately and with much more armor piercing ability then the ammo consuming weapon.

**Apophis's Ha'tak near the pel'tac**

A lone jaffa slowly stalked after the Tau'ri infiltrator. He knew his god would reward him if he could give a decent description of the enemy's tech. she paused as a platoon of jaffa cut her off from her progress. As her shield faltered then fell the jaffa inwardly cheered knowing his comrades would take her down soon. However she began acting strangely. She was waving her hands and chanting in a strange language when suddenly five balls of the blackest energy began to glow around her when she finally uttered.** _%Consume the meek%_**

He watched in dread as a malevolent presence was felt and then the jaffa in the hall started to disintegrate staff weapons fell to the floor as hands melted into dust and then nothingness. Armor fell to the floor as torso's and legs soon followed. There was no witness in the hallway to see her advance into the ships pel'tac.

Apophis was furious his son Klorel should have called him as soon as he was out of his sarcophagus so he could address the gathered jaffa. Instead his Ha'tak was acting strange. He ordered the launch of a squadron of al'kesh as well as three squadrons of death gliders.

When an armored figure strode onto his bridge his anger flared. He stood, made his eyes glow, and demanded she bow before her god. She merely began firing at all the jaffa stationed around the pel'tac.

Once she was done and totally ignoring the so called god she approached a station and placed a crystal on the interface. Apophis raised his ribbon device and fired a kinetic blast to send her from the station only to have her shields flare into the visible spectrum. The ship shuttered as all the doors opened and a massive force of air was blown into space. "What have you done?" raged Apophis as the thin air nearly muted his voice. He stared in disbelief at losing to this lone Tau'ri. Where have they been hiding that tech. was his last conscious thought.

**SGC**

An aid ran up to General Hammond "sir I've got Ember and Teal'c on the radio"

"Where are they son? They didn't come through the gate."

"Apparently sir, there was a stargate on one of the Ha'tak."

Once the general confirmed who was on the line. Then he demanded a situation report.

Ember replied. "Sir I've done what I can. My virus did what it was supposed to, however there were some unforeseen effects. This ha'tak seems to have had an automated landing sequence built into it since the virus was made and I have no control. Part of that sequence will leave the shields up until just before it lands, so you won't be able to destroy it before people see it. I'm sorry sir.

You do however, have a bigger threat then two toothless Ha'tak. Apophis sent out several squadrons of death gliders and a squadron of Al'kesh they will attack earth unless Teal'c or his mentor Bra'tac can talk them down. Personally I don't see that happening.

The only trouble your plains will have against the gliders is the gliders ability to exit the atmosphere. The Al'kesh however will require several conventional missiles in rapid succession to take out."

General Hammond's face went hard. "I understand. You did what you could. Now we will have to clean up the rest.

A/N

This will be the only time I will answer to a "GUEST" reviewer.

Warning possible spoilers below only if you are the "GUEST" do I want you to read.

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Turn back!

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Last chance!

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If I have obvious and glaring errors please point them out. Don't just say I have them. Reviews are supposed to help the author improve.

Yes most of this story up to this point has been written. I only broke the story down into "chapters" based on the corresponding "episodes" time wise.

Of course she's Sue like she's a **PLAINESWALKER**. Incredibly overpowered and in this case knowing what is going to "roughly" happen ahead of time.

Though if you're not familiar with Magic the Gathering let me fill you in planeswalkers, "walk" between dimensions or planes as they call them. And with the use of Mana can create anything they have encountered before. However those are just temporary constructs. If they "build" it in the new dimension however...

Current Magic the gathering elements include. Everything save the gate building and iron man armor made from Darksteel, the Myr, the Arc-Bound, thopters, ornithopters, and a few others I might have missed or will come in, in later chapters. She also can cast spells though she hates to do if for reasons I'll go into once I have tightened up the origin story.

Other elements she gathered from other dimensions, not in the Magic the Gathering game include. The ironman armors, the ancient outpost on her planet, the shoulder mounted shuriken pistol from Warhammer 40K, and the "disruptor" which is the Breen weapon from Star Trek Deep Space Nine. As well as others I forget at this moment.

Finally, what is on fan fiction is my entire writing experience. Each chapter goes through at least four read throughs while I try to catch any incomplete thoughts and add or change punctuation, sentence structure, and point of view errors.

No I don't have a beta, and frankly don't want one. I'm working on another story with another author and I doubt a beta will be even remotely more prompt then someone I see every day. (Literally I work with the guy)

From now on please sign in so I can respond to you personally instead of cluttering up my story with non-story related text. My personal pet peeve. Though on the net **occasionally** understandable.

A/N 2

Yes as an author who is not getting paid to do this reviews give us that feel good feeling of "you like me you really like me" however I can go to my home page and see how many people like my story as those are the ones that keep coming back.

However a well thought out review will be responded to even if it is only an "I don't get it" review.

That being said here's a shout out to Major Simi who reviewed all my chapters in this story so far. And to answer your reaccuring question. Yes I time skip a lot. However I try to only skip cannon scenes. Those parts of the original series that would take forever to write out when anyone could just go watch the series, and you should.

Go.

Watch.

See you next time for…

In The Serpents Grasp Part Two


	6. The Serpent's Layer PT 2

**Egypt**

The video from the camera was washed out, obviously filmed on home video. The pyramids could be seen in the background while in the foreground several tourists could be seen wandering around.

Until someone screamed… At which point the video got an interesting view of the ground and a pair of hairy legs. This lasted for a few seconds until a voice said "Dad. Are you getting this?"

The footage shook and jittered until it was pointing at the sky where all you could see was flaming clouds. Wind buffeted the camera man as the unnatural weather intensified until suddenly the clouds parted. Two massive glowing orange balls were slowly lowering towards the ground the closer they got the clearer the balls became until you could see inside them. Gasps and screams could be heard as the now visible giant golden pyramids descended. Their undersides were hollow and there was some gigantic thick ring encircling most of the middle of the outside of the pyramids.

As they descended one pyramid ship occluded the other as lower and slower it came until just before the shield would impact the ancient stone edifice it disengaged. Stunned people looked on in awe as this mind bogglingly massive ship settled to the ground completely engulfing the ancient pyramid.

Silence reigned until someone commented. "The pyramids are landing pads for alien spaceships? Who saw that one coming?" As if that was the trigger many people panicked others started babbling and screaming one enthusiastic young boy could be heard to exclaim. "All right we're being invaded!"

**SGC May 25, 1998**

General Hammond sat at the conference table with SG-1, Ember, and Bra'tac. The T.V. anchor on the wall was talking. "This video of the alien ships now known as Ha'tak mother ships from a system lord of the goa'uld, (Did I say that right?) Landing on top of the great pyramids in Egypt is still one of the most played and downloaded videos on the internet. In the past two month's many riots and doomsayers have spread. A few countries have also declared martial law.

After the release of the Stargate program information, much of the initial panic has died down. Our government correspondent has this to say on our ongoing …"

The general turned off the T.V.

"As you know, Due to the obvious clear and present danger of the earth, and the obvious disclosure of the stargate, there have been and will be continuing changes here at the SGC. The SGC program will now include all branches of the US government, not just the air force and some marines as well as forign governments as they get up to speed.

The Gate room is undergoing some major renovations even as we speak. Lengthening it, widening it, and adding a vehicle bay adjacent to it. The bay is for when we can get some upgraded tanks that can go through the gate for the army boys, as well as if and when we get our Thopter analog as a gate ship, as well as holding our MALP's and recon drones.

Carter, what is our technical situation like?"

"With our budget renewed and increased our scientists have gone into research with a new vigor. As per our treaty with Ember on all Novin techs. She will not let us have any tech until we can figure out how to build it ourselves. That being said we have been able to create the mark one battle armor. Like her environment armor that it was designed off of. The mark one has a power pack. Unlike hers our power source is only a naquadah reactor. It provides enough power for the plasma repeater wrist weapon and other onboard systems including limited life support. It does not however, have forcefield generators. But it can stand up to several staff blasts before the armor is breached. Our techs are having trouble with the zat's but we have figured out and even improved the micro grenade and micro missile launcher. The repulsors do not have enough power for sustained flight but they can perform as what one of our scientists call jump jets. Our people will also carry a slightly modified P-90 as all standard gate teams do.

She and I have both signed off on creating the armor for our battle teams. And guard teams. Our first contact teams however will still remain as they are to prevent fear and hostilities.

Our tech boys have not been able to figure out Novin sensors yet but they feel confident if they can figure out the Goa'uld sensors they can use that as a spring board. Despite this Ember has allowed us to use her sensors in our gate room as well as pulling several sensor satellites through from her world for our use as sensor buoys throughout the Solar system.

Now all we need is the anti-ship tech up and running and we'll be good."

"How is that going Ember?" asked the general.

"The short answer is. I'm locked out. The virus I uploaded only will receive the shutdown command from the communication receiver. It has shut off console command to prevent anyone on the ship from stopping the bug. The automated landing program will only allow a goa'uld to restart the ship from the pel'tac command consul, and has shut down everything else. Any tampering will set off a self-destruct. It's a perfectly closed loop. The only way I can think of to get around it is to rip out all the control crystals and put in whole new ones. And when I say all I mean all, all of them from all over the ship, Need to be pulled all at once or boom! Otherwise all you have are two overgrown paper weights. So access to capital ship systems are a no go for now.

The death gliders and Al'kesh however are completely fine. And with the hanger doors locked open, will be easy to fly out to anywhere you need them to be. But just to be safe I should go through their computers to see if they have anything nasty like the Ha'tak did with an automated recall or something."

The general nodded. "Dr. Jackson what is the political fallout from our friends' statement to the UN the other week?"

There were chuckles around the table as many of the people remembered Ember's address to the UN.

**May 15, the U.N.**

Carter chuckled to herself as she watched the young looking girl try to put on normal clothes. Outside of her armor she looked like any other vulnerable teen or up and coming recruit. She shook her head knowing that this supposed little girl was actually several centuries old. She was struggling to get into a dress suit similar to the air force dress uniform, just a blue grey instead of dark blue. After helping her into the suit she stood back and watched this formidable woman walk out of the compartment of the airplane they were in to meet the nations of the earth, and she found herself not knowing whom to pity more, the naive looking girl, or the nations of the earth.

Standing behind the podium she stared out at most of the member nations of the world and waited. As soon as the murmuring died down she began.

"People of the Tau'ri. I call you that because in the galaxy at large that is what you are referred to. Literally translated it means the first people. I am descended from a group of humans abducted and enslaved by the parasitical aliens that so recently attacked your world. I have come as your ally to remove that threat. I was successful this time mainly because I was lucky. The next time I may not be so lucky. So I have offered my peoples science to the defense of your world.

That is not to say I will give all of my tech to all of the countries of this world."

She waited several minutes as the uproar continued. Finally she grew tired and began talking ignoring the raised voices of the irate member nations.

"I have done extensive research into every country on the planet. And found fault in all of them. Even in America. Their economy sucks, because they switched from gold to oil, only to have countries that are their enemies not follow the rules they bullied the other countries into following.

However China does meet the minimum of human rights. Anyway I'm not going to go over every detail of every country in this speech. In the documents you have been given are five major items I look for in those people who will receive my tech if you hit at least three minimums in say human rights economy and military practices. I welcome you to participate in the future of your planet.

**Back at the SGC.**

He started and looked up. He took off his glasses, wiped them on his shirt tail and put them back on while he started to speak. "Well as we all know Ember here broke the mold in what we thought an alien race would do. Basically she said if you don't meet at least three minimums out of five you don't get my tech. needless to say those countries that fell below the line are furious and are willing to start several wars. Those above the line however would easily defeat the others if war did start. Though it would truly be a world war, if a short one, America, England, Russia, Canada, China, Japan, and others vs. everyone else.

The upside is, the fence sitters, those near the line are looking to improve and those above the line are looking to get better. Speaking of you made a comment about our economy Ember I was wondering if you had any suggestions."

Ember smiled at that. "When you have figured out the mana generators, and you will, I'm sure of it, you won't need your reliance on oil, or coal, or other fossil fuels. This will put many people out of jobs and totally ruin your current economy. In order to prevent this, your government will have to base your economy on something else, and provide education, and job placement for the employees that the new technologies that are going to be replacing.

For example in the automotive field alone the new tech can do the following. Have a power generator the size of the current battery but with much more power. Have an electric motor much more powerful than current gas powered ones. Have internal inertial dampening fields to prevent damage to people if they get into an accident. And because of the dampening field the structure of the car can be reinforced to be much more solid and take less damage from an accident, improving the life expectancy of the vehicle. And if you convert over to repulsor tech creating hover cars you won't have to deal with weather conditions like snow anymore, and you would almost eliminate all accidents with directional repulsors stopping the car before it hits something.

As to what your economy should be changed to? I don't know."

**A couple days later**

Chloe was sitting there, her mind bouncing between several things. Primarily focused on her work, in assisting Jay Felger with his work, on the plasma weapon he was working on. The second thing on her mind was her budding feelings for the man, though too timid to express them at this time. The third was the odd behavior of the resident alien in their midst.

She had noticed that Ember had been sitting and staring pensively at a holo display for a long time now and she was curious as to what the woman was thinking. When her curiosity final got the best of her she got up and approached the armored woman.

"Is there anything I can help you with?" she asked hopefully.

Ember started out of her reverie and blinked several times at the lab assistant before heaving a huge sigh and answering. "No thank you.

Well maybe. I currently have a moral dilemma. My sensors got complete readings of the Asgard matter transmitter tech when we visited Cimmeria and I think I can duplicate it based on what I know about the ring matter transporters. My problem is how would the Asgard react to me making or recreating their tech."

Chloe thought for a minute and then asked. "Why don't you ask them?"


	7. In the line of duty

**SGC May 28, 1998**

General Dour was furious. It was during his first shift as the army's representative to be in control of the SGC when the incident happened. He was sure it was nobody's fault but for it to happen on his shift pissed him off to no end.

A power outage caused the repulsor shield on the goa'uld prisoners' cage to go out and they escaped. Seth was killed after he had used the computers, as the other two didn't know how to use them, to gate to another world. Klorel and Apophis got away. What really pissed him off was Apophis; how that guy survived almost twenty minutes of oxygen deprivation he didn't know; only to get away now.

Apparently they had used their superior strength to force the cage. They overpowered their guards and stole weapons killing three on their way to the gate room. And in the gate room with all the confusion with the renovations they got through.

He turned to Teal'c "What would be the possible courses of action the goa'uld will take now that they have escaped?"

Teal'c nodded as he thought "There are several courses of action Apophis might take. The first is to call on several other Goa'uld system lords and raze your planet. This is not very likely however for it will mean a severe loss of prestige and power for Apophis and the other system lords will begin attacking his space.

The second course of action will be for him to gather all of his Ha'tak mother ships and attack. This is not something he would do lightly for it will leave his territory defenseless and several minor goa'uld will attempt to take planets from under him. Which will alert others of his weakness and they will attack his space.

The most probable course of action he will take will be to increase production of Ha'tak ships especially since you have two yourself and attack you once he has at least three times your number. This course of action should take at least a year or two to accomplish."

The assembled military commanders from around the world breathed a collective sigh of relief. Before one of them spoke up. "We should still increase research into deterrents so we will be ready when he does show up." There was collective nodding from around the table.

**Tel'tak cargo ship en route to Antarctica May 31, 1998**

Gary was excited. He was one of the first non-military people to be on an alien spaceship. Even the fact that they were going to arguably the coldest place on earth right before its winter season couldn't detract from that fact. After it had been agreed upon, and the alien girl said that the cargo scout ships found in the large pyramid ships were safe to fly, there were plans made to send an archaeological expedition to the Antarctic.

The first groups were to set up some kind of permanent structure on top of the ice over the site. The second group of which he was a part. Was going to be drilling a mile deep hole in the ice. Of course the scientists had to be difficult about it and demand that the entire thing be done with core samples which will prolong the time it takes to get all the way through.

Once through however a Tel'tak will be stationed there permanently so the scientists can use its ring platform to get down to the corresponding one deep under the ice that those high tech scans said was down there.

Of course as with everything related to aliens these days the news people had filmed them taking off in the odd triangular ship.

**June 5, 1998**

And in gate news today it was confirmed that a mining consortium from several countries around the world will be leaving through the stargate to the planet known as Abydos to begin mining the abandoned naquadah strip mine there. Fifty percent of the mineral will be used by the governments of the world in its defense. The other fifty percent will be split between the countries of the world and used to create technologies needed to replace this planets dwindling natural and fossil resources. Access to the mine was granted to our people by the natives after lengthy negotiations…

**June 27, 1998 **

The new gate room was finished. The iris was still the primary defense on the stargate. There was a forcefield backup in case the iris wouldn't or couldn't close. Novin sensors were embedded in the walls floor and ceiling of the room able to sense everything from pressure on the floor to atmospheric disturbances to electromagnetic fluctuations. As well as several other increasingly esoteric modes of detecting, well everything. One of the truly helpful abilities of the room was its ability to detect goa'uld infested people as they enter the room, as evidenced every time Teal'c walks through.

Threat deterrents exist throughout the room as well, several automated disrupter weapons for in case replicators come through. As well as other weapons and defenses. Including two pill boxes flanking the main and vehicle doors. Only allowing access from outside rooms and having full range of sight around the gate room for the squads stationed inside them twenty-four seven. Each pill box was a concrete bunker with forcefield backups allowing them to fire out without the enemy being able to fire in.

The leaders of the SGC were ready to begin operations again.

**July 3, 1998**

The sound of Zat fire in the gate room caused the already traumatized refugees to scream once more. When everything settled down and the refugees were huddling against the wall soldiers approached the two goa'uld infested prone forms, a groan of pain and disappointment went through them as one of the forms was Carter from SG-1.

"Put them in separate cells. We don't want them to cooperate on trying to escape. And double the guard on Carter. She knows most of the tech in the prison cells; after all she designed half of them." The irate General Dour commanded.

**Hours later**

"So you're telling me you are from a rebel goa'uld faction?"

"We hate the goa'uld. We are not goa'uld we are the Tok'ra. We believe in true symbiosis with our hosts. I am Jolinar of Malkshur. I believe the attack on the planet was so an Ashrak assassin could kill me before I could give sensitive data to my people.

Joining with your Samantha Carter was an act of desperation that if I had a choice I would not have done. However if you release me I will return to the Tok'ra and gain a willing host thus releasing your Carter."

"So you're holding one of our people hostage."

"No but I know no other way of getting back to the Tok'ra."

In another room the questioning was not going as well. "This guy refuses to say anything only giving vague threats if we refuse or delay releasing him. He is only giving some vague warning about a threat to the galaxy that must be stopped.

After much discussion and Teal'c confirming the existence of the Tok'ra. A plan was made. They only hoped that the creature inside Carter would go for it.

"We have a counter proposal for you. You say you blend with your host? We want you to do so with our soldier there and then leave her and enter this stasis jar. Once she confirms the information you have given us we will return you to your people."

The look on her face as she thought it over caused those talking to her to lose what little hope they had.

"My people would never trust you." Was the damning statement.

After much discussion over the next few days where the goa'uld assassin tried several times to escape and on his fourth attempt was killed when he was electrocuted trying to bypass the forceshield power. An agreement was made with Jolinar. She would be escorted to a world under guard until a dialog could be created.

**The next day**

As the stargate disengages behind the ten man team in battle armor and one Jolinar Carter hybrid. They began walking into the desert. Their armor pinged letting them know of an ambush sight just ahead of them causing them to stop; and tell the Tok'ra to call out to her comrades.

The standoff was tense for a while until a runner was sent a short way away to the ring platform leading down to tunnels under the desert.

The Tok'ra wants the humans of the Tau'ri to disarm and proceed under guard into the tunnels. The Tau'ri refuse not totally believing the Tok'ra in taking willing hosts until their Captain Carter was returned to them.

After several tense minutes a Tok'ra by the name of Martouf comes up and begins questioning Jolinar. Once Jolinar's identity was confirmed the Tok'ra relaxed somewhat and allowed the Tau'ri below into their tunnels.

As the Tok'ra Garshaw decries The SGC in not needing anything from them except hosts. They had no hosts for Jolinar let alone Selmak who was dying for lack of willing host.

One of the armored Army guys spoke up after seeing how the conversation was going. "It's not that we are not willing to provide you with host's it is just that the people currently here have too much sensitive information to allow into an unknown power's camp. What type of people do you need for hosts what type of benefits can you provide to those that can be allowed into your camp? We do not have the authority to provide you with hosts. We would need to talk to our superiors to get people willing and able to be blended."

After a long discussion Ember who had joined the battle group suddenly walked forward.

"You need to see this." She blurted as she pulled a holographic disc from her waist.

A sphere appeared with two faces on it one was a goa'uld face known to them the other was the face of the Tok'ra Cordesh. Cordesh spoke. "Yes a sizable group of Tau'ri are even at this time trying to create an alliance with the Tok'ra." The other face replied. "Very well, delay them as much as possible I shall force the fleet to depart as soon as possible we shall arrive within a few days' time."

Several stunned faces around the table glanced around nervously. Garshaw her face a mask of fury said we wait until he arrives then we remove that symbiote and ask the host what is going on.

Hours later a crying host explains what the goa'uld spy had done. The Tok'ra in light of the evidence presented them by the Tau'ri agree to let them go.

Cordesh decides to become the host to Jolinar as a way to repay both the Tok'ra and the Tau'ri for betraying them. Once Jolinar is out of Captain Carter. Captain Carter offers the SGC as a temporary base of operations until they can set up another base elsewhere. Jolinar convinces the Tok'ra that the Tau'ri can be trusted. And besides they need not gate directly to their new planet from the SGC.

Once the team consisting of SG-1 and the armored team returned to the SGC they began preparations to receive the Tok'ra race, including the ailing Selmak as this was the last time she could be moved in its current body.


	8. Prisoners

**SGC July 10, 1998**

As the head of the SGC General George Hammond was not new to paperwork, however as the leader of a now multinational and co-operative armed force, he was not used to the sheer volume of paperwork he now needed to take care of.

The paperwork to move NORAD out of the mountain, in order to facilitate the ever expanding SGC had been signed in triplicate last week, and the NORAD guys were packing, however it was not yet known where their new home might be.

Several countries wanted personnel either on SG teams, or they wanted teams of their own. It seemed that the whole world had space exploration sickness. This of course, gave him a headache.

Chief Master Sargent Walter Harriman walked into his office with yet another armload of paperwork in his hands. George brought his hands up to dry wash his face before asking "What's in this pile Walter?"

Walter looked up and smiled before answering as he shuffled the stack under one arm and set a mug of coffee on the general's desk. "The first is in foreign affairs. The Japanese want to send some personnel over." He said as he pulled the appropriate folder from the pile of paper he was juggling.

"Let me guess they want an SG team as well. Can't these people realize we can only have so many active teams at once? Last week was the second time one of the other stargates received a wormhole because our main gate was in use." He griped as he received the first folder and started leafing through it as he sipped at his coffee.

"Not this time. This time they want to send over scientists. I think you should approve it because they are offering a wider range of specialists then the other countries. In addition to the normal techies they are also willing to send a micro-biologist, geologists, historians, and linguists, among others." George nodded and placed it on a pile whose content only he knew.

"This is a request for scanning and archeological tech for the scientists on Abydos." Walter said as he pulled another file from his dwindling pile. George nodded as he transferred the file to his requisitions stack as he picked up his coffee and took a sip.

Walter pulled a file out and handed it to the general. "This is a personnel transfer. They are sending us the top negotiator America has. A Dr. Weir to lead the SGC diplomatic teams." George sighed as he plucked the file from the man.

Walter fished another file from his pile. "Ember is almost done going through the systems of the Al'kesh bombers. Out of the thirty left in the two Ha'tak three so far have the anti-theft software. She needs to check five more to finish off the thirty before she can move on to the gliders. Also, out of the ten Tel'tak cargo ships discovered on the Ha'tak, four have been discovered to have some form of cloaking technology." George nodded as he took the offered file from Walter, leafed through it quickly then signed it and put it into another pile for Walter to take as he left.

Walter handed him the rest of the files at once. "This is the standard mission reports, pay scale, and requisition forms from last week." George grunted and put them on yet another pile on his overcrowded desk.

"One more thing sir." There will be a press conference later today where you will address the associated press about our finalized treaty with the Tok'ra.

George winced knowing that the humans may not take that very well considering the others of the species would have enslaved them. But he nodded anyway and was determined to spin the treaty with the Tok'ra to show the benefits to Earth.

He waved Walter away and opened the file on the Japanese scientists to read more thoroughly before signing it.

Walter nodded as he picked up the pile of outgoing paper. He hooked his foot expertly around the bottom corner of the door pulling the door mostly closed to let the General do his work without most of the distractions an open door would bring.

**Antarctica**

Gary grunted as he pulled the latest core sample from the drill. The ten foot section of hollow pipe had to be removed and the ice carefully slid out. Meanwhile the other drillers were fitting a new pipe to the drill arm as it began yet another decent into the ice. Every ten feet another section of pipe had to be affixed to the slowly descending shaft, only for them to drill a total of ten feet and then bring the whole thing up again, slowly removing each ten foot section as it cleared the surface. The first couple sections of ice came up quickly but as they drilled deeper each section took longer, and longer to remove. And with one hundred and eighty feet of ice pulled up that means they still had over five thousand to go.

**Egypt**

Sarah Gardner stood in front of her colleague and mentor David Jordan. Her other colleague Steven Rayner refused to come when he had called and asked them to show up. She stood in stunned silence as a couple armed men from the now famous SGC pulled the Osiris and Isis jar out of the pile of Egyptian artifacts recovered from the Stewart expedition. After waving some device over the two jars they nodded at the Osiris jar and pulled out some funny looking snake like device. Sarah jumped when it moved like a striking snake. And watched with eyes wide open as the device fired three lightning like shots at the jar, causing the jar to disappear right before her eyes.

The man then handed the Isis jar over to Professor Jordan and said. "This one has a dead goa'uld in it. The other one was in stasis and if it had been opened it would have possessed one of you. Now that Osiris is gone and with aliens known about you can have this."

Sarah turned to her professor as the other men began leaving. "Daniel knew long before about the aliens and ships."

One of the army men turned. "Daniel Jackson?"

"Yes,"

"Good man. A little flakey when studying his rocks though."

"You know him? Tell him to give us a call sometime."

The man smiled. "I'll tell him the next time he's back on Earth."

The two archaeologists looked at each other as the last of the men left the room. Then turned to stare at the jar holding an ancient dead parasite.

**On Abydos**

The minors were disgruntled that they couldn't strip mine naquadah the easy way by setting off explosions and then picking up the pieces. Instead they had to erect a complex scaffolding across the old strip mine of Ra's. And slowly drill it out. Machines like jackhammers were still faster than hand tools. But it would take time, time no one was sure they had.

Meanwhile the archaeologists were swarming over every ancient stone surface on the planet they could reach in order to find out anything they could to give them a leg up on what would soon become a very complex war.

**Earth****,**** associated press conference room SGC**

Like any other press conference room it had the podium with its forest of microphones and at least a dozen cameras focused on the podium. The difference in this room unlike others was the lack of national flag in the background. Instead it had a plain black circle with a symbol, that symbol was a simple one. On the bottom was an inverted v or a capital A without the crossbar while above it was a small circle The symbol many were beginning to understand was the symbol of Earth or as people were learning the way the galaxy new them, the Tau'ri.

General Hammond stepped through the door with a small folder in his hand and walked up to the podium. "My fellow Americans, people of earth. A week ago we encountered a Rival faction of Goa'uld calling themselves the Tok'ra. While they are of the same species, there can be no greater separation of philosophical beliefs. As you know the Goa'uld believes in total domination. Both in their host and in their empire.

The Tok'ra believe in true symbiosis. Never taking an unwilling host except in extreme circumstances and vacating an unwilling host at the earliest convenience. The Tok'ra are dying out as their queen has been missing and is presumed dead. This means there can be no new Tok'ra born. And with a lack of willing hosts many of them sit in stasis jars and collect dust, unable to help their siblings in overthrowing the Goa'uld dominion of the galaxy.

Earth in general has agreed to an alliance with the Tok'ra. The alliance is simple, we provide manpower both with willing hosts, and an armed force when necessary. They provide vital intelligence gathering source in the goa'uld ranks and scientific expertise in helping us advance our planets defense.

Thank you I'll take questions now."

When Rear Admiral Miles Stacy of the navy, in charge of the current shift of the SGC sent him a memo of the missing SG-1. George new he would be joining the diplomatic team of Major Kovacek and SG-9 in trying to negotiate for their freedom.

**Days later SGC**

Linea the genius old lady SG-1 had brought back with them from the planet they were imprisoned on, placed the gate room on lockdown, preventing the soldiers from shooting at her as she escaped through the gate. Once the computer technicians got the gate up and running again SG teams were sent out to find her. However the planet she had gated to was empty, meaning she could have gated to any number of other planets. SG-1 sighed in frustrated defeat.

**AN**

Rear admiral navy one star.( Miles Stacy)

Brigadier general one star marine

Brigadier general one star army. ( Dour)

Major general two star air force. (Hammond)


	9. Gamekeeper

**Egypt Earth July 17, 1998**

A US Marine stood honor guard, along with local military, in the launch bay of the landed goa'uld Ha'tak, as their alien ally was working on yet another Death Glider. She began swearing in some language her translator couldn't, or refused to, translate as she popped out of the cockpit and her armored boot kicked the side of the fuselage in frustration letting out a resounding clang startling several people in the bay.

He approached her and asked what was wrong. Her helmet whose faceplate was open allowed her to give him a baleful eye. She answered. "The short answer is. Every Death Glider I've checked has been hardwired with recall software. Tearing out the software would make the Death Glider useless. And if we use them against an invading force they would all shut down and set a course out of the system to who knows where.

I've checked over a dozen and they all have it. I'm pretty sure that all the others will have it as well. I've found an easy way for my assistants to check for the program so I'll let them do it if the leadership thinks we should. Personally I think we should scrap them as junk since Novin Thopters are superior in most ways and you people of the Tau'ri are already figuring out most of their systems already."

The two Marines and the two guards from the Egypt armed forces followed behind her as she walked through the Ha'tak stepping over power cables and around flood lamps as they proceeded since the main power, and frankly everything else in the ship was unusable. They walked and climbed though the ship until they reached the lowest level and climbed down some scaffolding, for even the ring transporter could not be initiated from inside the ship.

Pausing on the way to the base camp a short way away to look at the tent city surrounding the cordoned off area. They watched as people on the other side of the barricade and armed security gawked at the two massive golden and black structures currently resting upon their national monuments.

Heaving a sigh Ember continued on her way toward the base camp's radio tent to get in touch with the SGC since they generally don't like it when she uses her systems to contact them unless it was an emergency.

**SGC**

Ethan Diggs Marine General in charge of the current shift of the SGC was handed the phone. "General Diggs." He grunted as he spoke into the receiver.

"Ah, General. This is Ember. So far myself and my assistants have gone through over a dozen Death Gliders and all of them are virtually useless to you as they are now. I left my assistants to keep checking them but I believe that all of the Gliders are compromised. If there are no objections I'll work on the compromised Al'kesh since those can be fixed."

The general sat back and thought for a while, while he scribbled down some notes. "Go ahead. I'm sending a report up the chain to see if they would like you to do something else instead."

With the conversation pleasantries finished with, the call was disconnected. He handed an aid a report to send up to General Hammond as he walked out to oversee SG-4 off on their scheduled mission to PX whatever planet it was this time he thought as he rolled his eyes.

As the wormhole stabilized a moment of curiosity caused him to ask one of the techs. "How do you tell the front of the stargate from the back of the stargate?"

The techs exchanged glances amongst themselves before one of them spoke up. "There are several safety devises built into the gate. And other than the initial unstable vortex they seem to protect from inadvertently entering the wormhole the wrong way.

Travel through a Stargate is strictly one-way: from the dialing gate to the receiving gate. This is not a limitation of the wormhole, but of the technology; wormholes will transmit anything that enters them, but no solid matter could survive the process. Thus, each gate in the pair takes on a specific role: the dialing gate creates a field that converts the traveler into its most basic components, sub-atomic particles, and transmits it, while the receiving gate reassembles the transmitted matter back into its original form. The transmitting gate creates a force field along the (back) of the event horizon to prevent anyone from losing something if they brush against it. The receiving Gate has the same field on both sides of the gate not letting anything into the wormhole but letting reconstructed matter and energy out."

The General nodded in thought as he slowly walked back to the office overlooking the SGC.

**Antarctica**

Gary was both happy and sad that the first habitation structure of the Antarctic research post was finished. He was happy because he could finally get some privacy. He was sad because the rooms were much colder than the Tel'tak cargo rooms they had been using for the past weeks. Since it was his off shift he wrapped his subzero sleeping bag around himself and settled down to get some sleep. He drifted off to the sound more felt then heard, of the drill thrumming on yet another trip through the ice for the next core sample.

**Egypt**

Sarah Gardner filed her resume in the manila envelope and signed the paperwork the military officer had handed her. She hoped that her connection to Daniel would give her a better chance to get into the SGC as a researcher than similarly credentialed archeologists.

As she left the building she headed out of the city to look one last time at the Ha'tak before her flight back to the states would take off in ten hours. She was stunned as she passed the tent city surrounding the site. People from several countries were everywhere. Some were protesters claiming it all was a hoax. Others were protesting about the defiling of the property of the gods and everyone should bow down to the gaudy ships in penance to the transgressions against the gods. Others were simply sight seers out to see the alien ships and confirming with their own eyes that they were not alone in the universe.

Having to dodge around more than one altercation between factions in this mob of humans, she finally left on her way back to the hotel, and then her home, to wait for her answer to her resume.

**SGC**

The new personnel were being shown around the SGC down to whichever level their clearance allowed them access to. Some were introduced to the Tok'ra who still remained on the base to look after Selmak and her host Saroosh.

Some of them were introduced to other visiting aliens however most of them were more primitive and those visits were merely pleasantries.

Hours later when SG-1 returned with tales of the fantastic virtual reality some of the programmers began salivating on getting their hands on the technological marvels.

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A/N

Yes the force field on the stargate is not cannon this was a simple way to show that this was an AU fic.

I want to thank all eleven of you who favorite-ed my story. I had off work this week so bonus chapter!


	10. Need

**Terra Nova July 24, 1998**

Issac Haskins in charge of one of the army's babysitter teams for the scientists on the planet was watching as the scientists seemed to swarm like bees inside the Ancient outpost on the planet. Having requested and received permission to use the recharged ZPM to power the site weeks ago they have been attempting to learn all they could about the place.

After much time has passed they found two of the soldiers could power up the odd chair and get minor results in figuring out about the building. One geneticist has discovered the Ancient Technology Activation gene, or ATA gene for short. Another one got one of the two army people on the planet that could activate the chair to pull up a starmap of Ancient outposts, and was in the process of finishing recording the map for transmission to the SGC.

It was time for their weekly update to the SGC so he began to dial Earth. When the event horizon settled he sent the recognition code and radioed in. "This is Haskins with the scheduled weekly update on the Nova projects." He sat there and waited until they confirmed and told him to proceed with his report.

"The scientists are proceeding according to the outline given them on all Novin tech projects, nothing new to report on that. The Ancient outpost on the planet has had a breakthrough or two. They are detailed in the report. The scientists are requesting any personnel with dominant ATA genes to aid and accelerate discovery within the Ancient outpost. Information on the ATA gene is in the report. Also in the report are stargate addresses for about a dozen possible Ancient outpost sites. Including, according to the probable translation Terra Atlantus, which gave us the address for Earth. We are also sending through six of what the scientists believe are missiles uncovered from a collapsed section of our outpost. They believe it is the primer weapon used by the Ancients. Report ends. Now. How about getting me the sports scores so I can pass them on to my men?"

**P3R-636**

Shyla is fervently urging Daniel to again enter the Sarcophagus. "NO Shyla! Absolutely not! The Sarcophagus is a piece of flawed technology. Continued use may prolong your life but it messes with your mind causing you to be vicious and cruel. I won't use it when we already have its perfected cousin for use back home. Now I can help you by negotiating for one of our healing pods but you have to release my teammates."

**SGC Hammonds office**

General Hammond read through several proposals as they came across his desk. Several actually peaked his interest. And as a general he had to weigh the pros and cons as well as the risk verses reward.

After taking serious thought he adjusted the mission parameters and approved the general outline of the missions.

The first mission was to assign a research team to return to the planet known as Heliopolis, the planet Ernest Littlefield had been trapped on for decades to see it the ancient meeting hall survived the last storm that cut off the stargate. He decided that without a known Goa'uld influence a regular scout ship would do for the mission.

The four cloakable scout ships had other uses, two of which were going to be used to study the cloak tech. the other two were going to be used to find out if the Ancient outposts they couldn't connect to with the stargate were accessible. The first outpost other than the one on Terra Nova was the one designated Proclarush Taonas If the stargate couldn't connect he would send the cloaked ship. Their mission was to find the outpost and see if it was accessible, if it wasn't the team was to at least retrieve the ZPM that should be powering the base unless the one in charge of the mission thought it too dangerous. He made sure to send someone able to use the tech and one who knew how to access and remove the ZPM.

After signing off on the Ancient outpost missions he began reading the files on the Tok'ra "volunteers" for symbiosis. He shook his head sadly as most volunteers seemed to be crackpots of some sort or another and the military psychologist recommended not letting them blend and cause problems in their allies' ranks.

**A couple floors up**

Sarah Gardner smiled happily as she received her SGC badge. Apparently waiving around a world famous name could open doors. After her orientation she was directed to the Archeological lab that Daniel was nominally in charge of. His current assistant handed her one of the many projects they were working on in trying to translate alien languages.

**Egypt**

With the Tok'ra's help one of the Ha'tak was in the process of being slowly unlocked. With general internal power on and the auto destruct turned off it was only a matter of time until the ship was usable again. A process that had many of the scientists cheering in the halls.

**Days later**

Colonel O'Neill walked into the room to see the alien Ember sitting there deep in thought. He still didn't trust the motivations behind why she was helping them and he didn't trust her so he began their conversation with the snark he usually reserves for people like Senator Kinsey.

After startling her out of whatever reverie she was in he could tell she was getting angrier and angrier. Until finally she broke. He smirked knowing that he would finally get the truth from her.

"You want to know why I'm helping the Tau'ri? Fine I'll tell you. I'll tell you in a way you'll understand and relate to. And you are not going to like it.

The Tok'ra, the Nox, and the Tollan. In this little scenario those people will be represented by Jack O'Neill."

Jack raised his eyebrows. "The Tau'ri will be represented by Charlie O'Neil."

Jack felt a surge of emotion but grabbed it in a strangle hold. As he squinted his eyes in a glower at the woman.

"Now in our little scenario little Charlie found a shiny piece of alien technology. But because Jack decided to tell him he wasn't ready for that he took it away. But because Charlie was curious he decided to try to figure it out anyway and had himself killed. Now if Charlie had someone like me around to teach him gun safety and impress upon him how dangerous it was, and show him how to use the gun safely he would be alive today.

Do you understand now Jack? Do you get it? I'm your life guard at the pool. I'm your gun safety instructor. I'm the guy who taught you how to defend yourself with firearms and martial arts. I'm the one who taught you to think outside the box in order to survive.

Keep your paranoia it serves you well. Some really are out to get you. But those people out to get you are not me. I'm teaching your people not only how to survive in this universe. But I am hopefully teaching them how to thrive.

Now if you will excuse me I have a mission request to compose to General Hammond. So get out of my office." She pushed him out of the door and slammed it in his face.

**Elsewhere**

Jacob Carter sat pondering the phone resting in his hands, debating whether or not to call his daughter and tell her about his lymphoma cancer. He sat there wondering if they had found some technology that might help him. He sighed as he put the phone down he wouldn't use his contacts to save himself over someone else.


	11. Thor's Chariot

**SGC July 31, 1998**

Chloe was distracted between her budding feelings for her fellow scientist Jay Felger, and her work on the Novin environmental battle armor. Her concentration was shattered however when the last Novin walked into the room and started rooting around for something.

"What are you looking for Ember?"

The woman looked up at Chloe and took a second to place her in her memory. "Oh. You. Well remember the conversation we had a few weeks ago about asking the Asgard about their beaming tech. Now that the Ha'tak ships are out of lockdown and your scientists are swarming all over them Hammond has allowed me to pursue my own project. So I'm trying to find the data I was working with at the time."

Chloe gave a nod and walked over to help the girl.

**O'Malley's**

SG-1 was getting stares. They were polite stares, but everyone knew who they were. Teal'c was off in a corner among the billiard tables arm wrestling while Jack was sitting in a booth nursing a beer as he waited for his dinner.

Daniel was pontificating on some ancient rocks or another, Sam could tell that Jack was brooding so she finally asked him what was wrong.

"I had a conversation with that woman. And she told me some things that hurt a lot."

Sam's eyebrows rose as she thought about who Jack could be talking about.

"So I did some research."

Sam and Daniel looked at each other in surprise. Research was not something Jack would do.

"I went to the academy and watched the recruits as they were given their first firearms training. I noticed three types of people. There were the ones that held the gun respectfully, those who held it nervously but competently, and those who were a danger to themselves and others.

I pulled some aside from all three groups and asked them questions.

Those from the first group were sportsmen or hunters, generally from rural areas. They had been exposed to firearms from the time they were little and given safety instructions from their parents, and in a lot of cases had been to a gun safety course at their high school.

Those from the second group had been exposed to guns as well. They were mostly from violent urban neighborhoods where they grew up to respect if not handle firearms themselves.

The third group was all like Charlie they were kept away from guns by their parents, and the only exposure they had was from TV or video games.

It made me realize that Ember was right. I should have explained and demonstrated gun safety to him. I should have taken him to a gun range so he could see for himself the danger they were. I should not have given into my wife's desire to keep my son away from my life."

He took a huge sigh and exclaimed.

"OOH! Steak's here! Thanks! I'm starving!"

Sam and Daniel whipped around as the waitress approached their table with Teal'c ambling over from across the room. Watching their commander they saw something change almost as if he had finally forgiven himself and allowed himself to start healing. But what did they know they weren't psychologists.

**Ida galaxy**

Thor sat in his command throne aboard the Beliskner the Replicators he was fighting had tried to surround his ship. The new disrupter weapon was proving more than it's worth however as after firing the weapon and rendering the replicator blocks temporarily inert the other weapons could make short work of them.

He was surprised at just how effective the weapon was. After upgrading them, the Disruptors were able to rapidly strip the shields from the Replicator infested Asgard ships and then render them inert. Allowing his scanners to see and beam replicator blocks off the ship to be disintegrated into their subatomic particles.

The Replicators were still attacking aggressively, but now the Asgard could finally hold their own instead of constantly having to retreat. Thor pondered on the individual who had freely given them the tech to win their war over an implacable enemy.

Shortly after the battle as some of the crew beamed over to the now Replicator free Asgard ships he received a transmission rerouted over to his ship from Cimmeria. Wondering who it could be he activated the link he saw the transmission was from the Tau'ri and the one he was just pondering.

Activating the holo link he walked onto the platform to speak to the individual. Seeing the woman Ember in her primitive armor he allowed himself a subtle smile as he nodded and said "Greetings."

Standing on a similar platform in the Milky Way galaxy Ember smiled at the short grey alien in front of her and deciding on being polite she asked after the progress of the war.

"The war with the Replicators has turned. We are no longer in retreat. We do not have the ships currently to attack but because of your assistance we are able to produce them and know we have a chance to keep them from falling into enemy hands."

She nodded at him and began the reason she came here. "Thor the reason I came here today was to ask your races permission to attempt to develop your type of beaming technology. The last time I was here my passive scanners picked up a lot of data about how the tech works and I would like to attempt to recreate the tech myself."

Thor's eyes widened this was a way to repay the one who may have saved their society. "I will bring your request up before the Asgard high counsel. If they agree I believe I could bring an old version over to your planet for you to study."

Ember grinned at the Asgard "Actually if you do bring it to me bring it to Earth that is where I can usually be found. Besides my planet's home system has a massive satellite defense grid and if your ship doesn't have a proper friend or foe transponder they will fire on you. And you now know what the Disruptors are capable of."

Thor nodded and spoke one final time. "If the high counsel agrees I shall have one delivered as soon as possible."

Ember signed off as well with "Thank you Thor. And good hunting."

**Cloaked ****Tel'tak on rout to Proclarush**

The one Tok'ra agent watched in curiosity as the small human squad was gearing up in their armored space suit. Since few of the Tau'ri could fly the ship and those that could, (not very well). The Tok'ra watched and discussed among themselves the benefits versus problems inherent in any arrangement with straight humans. He was disappointed that no humans had yet been approved for the blending. The humans were insistent that only those who passed some test of the mind would be allowed to become hosts. And seeing some of the files of certain applicants he agreed.

They just wished the Tau'ri would hurry for Selmak had little time.

He and his partner thought back on the time he met the Novin, Ember. He was reluctant to take this mission until he overheard a conversation she had with a Tau'ri one thing that stuck out in both of their minds was her reasons for wanting the Tau'ri Tok'ra alliance to thrive,

_"Two sides of one coin," she murmured. "Teach them daring, they will teach you caution. Teach them humility, they will show you history. Teach them friendship, they will teach you independence. Teach them diversity, they will teach you tolerance. The Goa'uld cannot be defeated by one race alone."_

His Tok'ra had been stunned to silence for two days. His surprise total on how she could cut to the heart of the matter in a short paragraph. And now they hoped, hoped for a future without the Goa'uld.

A/N

Tok'ra Tau'ri quote was from queenling by simplysupreme an excellent read


	12. Message in a bottle

**SGC august 5****, 1998**

Samantha Carter Knocked on General Hammond's office door, opening it upon his "Enter".

"Ah, Captain Carter. Please come in and close the door behind you."

Lifting an eyebrow in unconscious imitation of Teal'c she did just that before coming to attention. The General smiled as he pushed a button on the end of his desk causing a soft hissing sound. "At ease Captain I erected an anti-listening device because what I'm about to tell you is sensitive in nature, both to yourself and to the military."

Carter nodded and relaxed. "What is the nature of this meeting then?"

George leaned back in his chair and gave a sigh. "As you know we have been giving psyche evaluations on all Tok'ra blending volunteers. While we do have some promising candidates we are currently stalling on giving them the go ahead."

Sam's eyes widened and she took a breath to talk when the General interrupted her before she started.

"I know what you're going to say, and I agree however circumstances the way they are we would like for someone special to be the first candidate for blending.

As you know the one most in need of a new host is Selmak, she is one of the Tok'ra's leaders. The Tok'ra still don't know what to make of us and I and other military strategists believe that an experience military man will give them a better handle on what we are capable of instead of a citizen off the street.

That's where you come in. I need you to see if you can convince your father to join the group."

Carter reared back. "My father? Why?"

"He didn't tell you?" Hammond's face fell. "Your father has lymphatic cancer."

Carter sat there as emotions warred across her face. "Can we do anything?"

The General gave another weary sigh. "The healing pods we have and the Tok'ra are the only things we have available to us that might be able to cure his cancer. And due to the agreement we have the pods are only to be used in extreme circumstances when dealing with the stargate."

Carter nodded remembering the regulations. Only damage sustained beyond they're medical abilities in relation to the stargate and SGC personnel would have use of the pods otherwise the demands would get crazy. It was one reason the pods were being studied as thoroughly as they were so they could be mass produced to be sent to hospitals around the world.

"Wait how did you know about my father?"

"As soon as we knew what we wanted we looked into all retired military personnel who would benefit from a blending. Your father was one of the best candidates, though not the only one."

"I'll talk to him. Is there anything else sir?" she asked as she rose from the chair she hadn't noticed she had sat in sometime during the meeting.

**Navy seal extraction team Goa'uld base undisclosed planet**

Lieutenant Marcus Ellington winced as a staff blast scored a lucky shot on his teammates. The heat of the blast caused a black smudge of carbon scoring across the man's shoulder; the kinetic energy caused him to stagger. His training let his stagger turn into a ducking spin where he took a knee and raised his attached rifle and let loose a burst of fire taking out the jaffa that had hit him.

Marcus grabbed the Tok'ra agent they had been sent in to extract and pushed him down and behind him. Getting in to the enemies compound had been easy, finding and getting the Tok'ra spy had been annoying. Getting off this rock was proving slightly problematic.

Sending orders to his subordinate to take out the plasma cannon that had taken up residence at the stargate was the current phase of the mission. He smirked as he remembered the man fading into the brush. The armor did have its drawbacks it wasn't as flexible as the human body, and it wasn't as quiet, but this was only the first generation human made armor and it had stood up well to its trial of fire.

Having depleted his last clip Marcus slung his rifle to his back and clamped it in place. Powering up his wrist blaster he stood and began giving cover fire for his teammates. Also giving even more of a distraction as the telltale roar of Kevin's micro missile launcher taking out the staff cannon attested.

The explosion caused most jaffa to turn and look to their rear which proved a fatal mistake. Taking the lead he ordered Kevin to dial the gate as the rest of his team took up flanking positions around their cargo.

He turned for one last look at the warzone as his team and the Tok'ra went through the stargates event horizon with a slurp. Sneaking in and blowing their way out defiantly took the jaffa off guard. A squad of jaffa could be seen rounding the bend of the road out of the forest heading towards the gate.

Deciding to leave a present he activated his shoulder mounted grenade launcher. With a slight cough a walnut sized sphere went hurtling across the distance. A few staff blasts came in his general direction missing horribly. A roar of the grenade exploding among the jaffa had him grinning again as he waved at what was left of the living jaffa before following his team through the wormhole.

**P5C-353**

SG-23 was given the job of exploring this airless world in their experimental space hard suites. Ember the Novin was with them in her more advanced suit in case anything went wrong. Upon finding the orb the team had decided it was a good idea to take it back with them to the SGC.

Ember had agreed initially but after running her own scans on the thing had halted them right before dialing out.

Leaving the orb in the vacuum sealed carry case near the gate the team went back through.

After days of translation work it was discovered that the orb was some kind of arc or seed technology. A last ditch effort for some alien race to survive the cataclysm of their planet. After much discussion it was decided to send the orb through the gate to the previously discovered primordial planet P4G-881 and send a scout ship to the planet in a year to see what was going on.

**Military hospital**

The last thing Jacob wanted to see as he left the hospital after his most recent treatment was his daughter standing in the waiting room with pursed lips and impatiently tapping her foot, with her arms crossed under her breasts. A sure sign of her annoyance that her late mother adopted right before some of their greatest fights. The only mitigating factor was the other people in the waiting room whispering and pointing at the famous woman.


	13. Family

**Earth Vatican City excerpt from statement from the Pope**

"I have spent these past months and weeks in prayer. I have been praying about guidance, about how to deal with the evidence around us of extra-terrestrial life. The revelation I have received is one I have been wrestling with for a while.

The aliens have a place in God's creation. They would not be there otherwise. And God in his infinite wisdom would create a heaven for them as well. While they may have religion we don't know which religion of theirs would be true and which is false. For this matter we will not send missionaries to other races. We will not start a crusade across the stars. For our brothers and sisters however we will bring the truth in the fullness of time.

However we will not make the mistakes of our forefathers, we will bring the stories of Crist to them but we will not force them to believe. For it is free will that grants us our sovereignty …."

The Pope went on to talk about how humanity is flawed and while the Bible is the word of God it has been translated and retranslated copied and recopied so many times that any hard facts may very well have been lost to history. That instead it should be used as a moral guide; this has been Yardley Davies B.B.C. News.

**August 14, 1998 Abydos**

Several tons of the mineral had been sent through the gate and the armed forces were set up once more for a long boring guard duty; when the gate began activating again. After a short battle the enemy jaffa had been subdued and the pregnant woman had been captured. They immediately dialed the SGC having captured a Goa'uld and requested several defense satellites to help defend their outpost on the world.

**Washington DC**

Samantha Carter listened to her father for hours as he defended his position about not informing her on his condition. She finally sighed before giving an edited proposal for him to join with Selmak, simply stating that for the first joining they were looking for retired military. His relationship and condition made him a more tempting target. He promised to consider the proposal. She gave him a week. After all Selmak was dying as well. Three days later he was at the SGC.

**SGC**

Bra'tac upon arriving at the SGC had insisted on speaking with Teal'c and Hammond from Texas. General Hammond held back a happy little smirk because he actually enjoyed the old man. After all it was very refreshing to deal with a leader that wasn't some politician vying to get the most out of you while committing the least of yourself.

His tale of Rya'c being brainwashed curdled his stomach. This was the second time those monsters had used children and he was adamant that that practice would stop.

When Teal'c commented that he would leave to get his son, with or without help from the Tau'ri the General interrupted him saying that there was no need.

He then ordered SG-1, 14, and 23 into full battle armor to assault Apophis on Chulak. They were given orders to demand a cease fire from any jaffa firing on them and not to engage women or children otherwise they had free reign with O'Neill in overall command.

Daniel Jackson was struggling to get into the form fitting under suit. He hated this part of the armored procedure, understanding why he had to put it on was going through his head. The armor was still mostly hard metal which would cause pinch points, especially around the joints so the under layer was to prevent such injury from happening.

Getting into the armor proper was an event in and of itself, needing several people to help suit him up. His armor was streamlined and less threatening looking then the others since he was the defacto diplomat and not a soldier. Using a soft blue green camo pattern and forgoing the bulky shoulder weapons. Instead his armor had the entire current lingual database uploaded into his onboard crystal computer. His wrist weapons were the standard plasma repeater, and modified zat gun. He had a pair of hand guns clamped to the small of his back. Also unlike the other armors his faceplate was a clear substance allowing face to face communication and seem less threatening.

Samantha Carter was in a word geeking out. Having put the armor through its paces a few times herself; she knew the ins and outs of the armor. Her under suit was a light blue, but that didn't matter to her, what mattered was her green brown camo sniper variant suit. With standard wrist plasma repeater, her second wrist weapon was the disruptor. Her shoulder weapons were a micro missile launcher and mini grenade launcher. Her hand weapon clamped to the hard point on her back was a dual ammo sniper rifle. The weapon used one type of ammo that was armor piercing, and the other that was anti-personnel. And though it probably wasn't needed a small tool kit was also back there.

Jack O'Neill was grumbling as he struggled into his under suit glairing balefully at his green tan camo armor. Looking at it he was reminded of a comment made by some techs how with a few cosmetic modifications the armor would look fairly similar to the Iron Man comic character. Grunting as the techs went over his weapons for the mission. Plasma repeater and zat. Check. Shoulder mounted shredder and grenade launcher. Check. Modified P-90 clamped to his back. Check. He didn't know why they went over this stuff so many times.

When the three teams gathered in the gate room the only person on the mission not in armor was Teal'c on his request. Upon dialing the gate the SG teams poured through the gate. All to rescue a good man's family.

The ensuing battle was short and brutal with two fifteen man battle teams one of them marines and another of them a foreign counterpart, plus SG-1. Apophis fled the world with most of his severely depleted loyal jaffa force.

Bringing his wife Drey'auc and son Rya'c back with him to the SGC many were surprised when the biological alarm went off and the gate room went into shutdown. It was quickly found out that Rya'c had false teeth with a nasty biological agent in them. And once they were removed a heart wrenching trial of pain was forced on the boy so that he had a chance to throw off the conditioning of the malicious false god Apophis.

In another room Daniel Jackson was with his wife. Despite the fact that she was with another man's child he knew she had no control of herself and did not hold it against her.

When he came home from the last mission to find his wife free of the Goa'uld Amonet he gave thanks to the Tok'ra for freeing his wife.


	14. Secrets

**August 15-September 24, 1998**

**Washington DC Presidents address to the nation**

My fellow Americans.

It is my sad duty to tell you today; that as of seven thirty Am Greenwich Mean Time the world is officially at war. Not with the aliens posing as gods who would enslave us. Instead we are at war with other countries who instead of understanding and accepting our alien allies wishes and improving their country for the good of all. They instead decided to become a schoolyard bully and use terrorist tactics to steal from their neighbors.

We as a planet and with a unanimous vote at the UN decided we would not bow before terrorists on any level not from individuals, not from groups or small organizations, not from whole countries, and NOT from galactic parasites.

We as a planet may be several nations but we must stand united against the external threats in the greater galaxy, and cannot be distracted long in internal affairs. For that reason every country in the UN has mobilized their entire war forces to combat these terrorist countries. We will send a message that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated…

**Breaking NEWS**

"In other news today. The first naquadah generators have been created and are for sail. There has been much debate over who the first generation power plants should be sold to and it has been decided that the majority are going to the various shipping companies such as UPS and Fed EX to name a few.

This decision was prompted by someone's comment on how expensive items in stores are because of fuel consumption in transporting said goods to the store. By removing that cost many products prices are slated to drop ten to fifty percent over the next few months as the nation's fleet of trucks trains and airplanes are slowly converted to the more energy efficient naquadah reactors."

"And now over to Susan for the financial report."

"Thank you Andy. Congress has passed a new tax code today. One of the problems addressed today was the new tax law being passed for the new fiscal year. Taking a cue from their math experts, there will be a federal sales tax of ten per cent implemented. This tax in conjunction with the falling costs of products because of the naquadah generators will mean little to your check book. However it will mean a lot to the national debt.

This tax will be studied intently for three to five years. After which one of the taxes either the new sales tax or the old income tax will be scraped. By that time every expert agrees the country will be out of debt and have a much better economy, even with the country on a war footing.

For more information go to this stations website.

**Somewhere in Color****ado**

Teal'c was spending time with his family.

"Where are we Teal'c?"

"Colonel O'Neill has lent me his house in the country as a place to spend time with you, my family. During the month leave the SGC has given me in order to just that.

As much as you wanted to spend time on Chulak I wish to show you the world of the Tau'ri and why I believe they can throw off the shackles of oppression the Goa'uld have over the galaxy."

**SGC hospital**

Sha're was staring in wonder at the computer monitor. Even her knowledge from her time as a goa'uld host didn't prepare her for this. Watching her baby move inside her as the attending Doctor said that it was a boy. She turned to Daniel with doubt in her eye.

"Do you think it is the right decision to keep this baby? Knowing what it could be capable of because of the Goa'uld."

Daniel smiled at his wife and replied. "the child is innocent. It may have the genetic memory of the goa'uld but that does not mean he will be evil. If Egeria the mother of the Tok'ra can be good I don't see how raised properly our son can be any different."

Sha're smiled up at her husband as the doctor began wiping the gel used for the sonogram off her stomach. "now that I have had my body examined by your Doctors I wish to return home to Abydos I have not seen my family in years."

"The SGC has given me a month off to spend time with you, and I don't care where we spend it."

**SGC (Selmak)**

Jacob Carter woke to the warm feeling of health, something he had not experienced in months, at least. After a brief moment of panic when Selmak talked to him he remembered the blending. The slow leaking of hundreds of years of experience into his memories; knowledge of technology he had never heard of before today. Technology he knew he could take apart and repair or even build from scratch.

He felt the surprise and confusion as well as a dawning realization go through Selmak as she, it, he, learned everything there was to know about Jacob. Including all his military training as well as reading "The Art of War".

Jacobs Eyes flashed as he agreed to let Selmak in control to talk to the Tok'ra counsel.

At the counsel after the congratulations on a speedy recovery and after the general Tok'ra business was concluded Selmak brought forward the Tau'ri's representative with the list of potential hosts. There were the usual assortment of critically injured and too sick for conventional medicine volunteers. But what was surprising first off was that completely healthy people volunteered for this. The second surprise that left the entire counsel speechless was the number of volunteers. There were several times the number of Tok'ra altogether let alone the brothers and sisters they had in stasis waiting for hosts.


	15. bane

**SGC September 20, 1998**

Two ZPM's…

Out of dozens of ancient outposts we were only able to retrieve two ZPM's. Ten worlds were occupied by the Goa'uld and stealth recognizance showed no sign of ancient tech two gate addresses led somewhere, one near an old set of ruins Daniel was interested in seeing and another went to a small square room Samantha wanted to see just in case it had some hidden tech.

The two ZPM's are slated to be hooked up to the darksteel reactor on Nova to be recharged because both of them are below two percent charge.

Samantha Carter sat behind a work bench staring out over the bee hive of activity in the science lab. The past month had been a wonderful learning opportunity for her and the other SGC scientists. After cracking the Goa'uld sensor package the Novin package was coming along rapidly.

Novin Formula seventeen was tested and confirmed as an incredibly useful immune booster; and while difficult to synthesize not impossible.

The Mark 2 personal armor had been approved with the advancing knowledge of repulsors they had been able to get a working flight suit, though not yet a sub orbital suit.

Sam arched her back trying to get the kinks and stiffness out while she thought on all the other projects being worked on. Namely the ship designs currently in competition for testing. The current design she was working on was labeled the X-301 project, basically an aerospace superiority fighter using the basics of the tech they had available to prototype and get the kinks out before the X-302 fighter already on the drawing board using completed knowledge tech could be brought to bear.

The weapons tech was the easy part as was the overall design. The hard part was getting Ember to sign off on the propulsion and power requirements the plane needed. Being too small for a hyperspace generator the X-301 was designed around a .3 light speed engine. The X-302 would have the Novin .6 engine. The goa'uld shield and Novin shield were too much of a power hog for the 301 so those designs were saved for the 302. If only there was some way to get enough power to make a hyperspace generator small enough to fit on the planes.

**Antarctica**

There was much celebration as the official half way point was reached at the drill site. A general day off was given, and then extended to three days as the drill had to be overhauled for maintenance. When they went back to drilling they knew that the easy part was over and the hard part was just beginning.

**Abydos**

Daniel and Sha're had spent much time together until their son was born, and now that he was born the couple spent much more time together.

The satellite scanners had found several other naquadah deposits across the planet and the mining consortium was planning on expanding their operation. Their only problem was transporting the volatile mineral.

**SGC**

When the malp went through the event horizon of the wormhole, off to the coordinates of BP6-3Q1 the Novin scanners did not register any human life signs. It did however register several large insect creatures as well as potential bio hazard conditions.

SG-9 was sent through in full hard suit to explore the city, and to find out what had happened. The resulting bug attack was overwhelming, massive swarms of them came at the eight man team their stingers not making it through their armor but the team was unable to take out an appreciable number even with all their weapon systems going full bore.

They dialed the gate asking for reinforcements preferably something with bug spray.

They got flame throwers.

The flame throwers were effective in taking down huge swarms of bugs at once, but it attracted huge swarms of bugs. SG-9 and their back up decided to retreat and put this planet on the do not call list.

The biologists taking bug goo from their armor before their armor was cleaned, and well before they were allowed out of it; later found that the insect's venom was actually its way of reproducing. The members of SG-9 was glad they were armored otherwise they would have joined the swarm.

**Several levels up**

Yuka Hitomi, one of the Japanese scientists working on the crystal computer tech approached General Hammond with an off world recourse gathering request.

**Heliopolis**

The engineering team had arrived and was in the process of shoring up the dilapidated castle until they could find a way to extract the ancient repository. Retrieving the stargate and taking it several miles inland to set it up as well as having their Tok'ra ally look at the DHD to see what needed to be done to repair it took less time.

Once the DHD was repaired and the stargate secured Earth was dialed to reestablish communications and for them to send more engineers to help extract the repository.

**The world of Oannes**

The diplomatic team sat near the gate several meters from the ocean surf talking amongst themselves, wondering if the one they had come to contact would show himself.

Large bubbles rising from the surf drew their attention as a blue skinned creature reminiscent of the creature from the black lagoon rose out of the water and slowly approached them.

The ambassador introduced himself and stated their proposal. First to see if Nem was willing to ally with the Tau'ri, since he had almost a year to think on it. And secondly to ask if he would at least give a sample of his language for the ever expanding device dubbed the universal translator.

The creature thought for a long moment causing the non-diplomats to start fidgeting. Before he answered them.

"Joining Tau'ri, too soon. Language yes."

The diplomatic envoy thanked him for his time and left the work of incorporating his language up to the linguists.

**Earth undisclosed location**

O'Neill was bored. Teal'c was borrowing his house to spend time with his family. Daniel was off on Abydos with his wife and newborn and Sam was doing boring geek stuff in the labs. Meanwhile he was stuck with all the trainees flooding into the stargate program. Military recruitment was up all around the world, what with the goa'uld threat and the world war going on. But this training run was always so boring. He heard the recruits nearing and spun out of cover splattering them all with paint balls thus killing them and stopping them from saving the world from goa'uld infiltration.

Yep, still bored.


	16. Tokra part 1

**SGC October 2, 1998**

The Tok'ra was gathered in the large vehicle bay adjacent to the enlarged gate room. Many were acting like little kids; some of them actually were teens. The older Tok'ra stood amazed at the sheer number of their brothers all of them having been awakened from stasis. Their numbers had more than tripled in a few short weeks.

With a planetary population of well over eight billion a few thousand willing Tok'ra hosts was easy to find. The time consuming part was matching personalities. Now was the time to uphold their end of the bargain as they discussed where their new planet would be.

The human hosts knew that they were signing up for a potentially hazardous life but at least half of them were glad they would even have a life. The noise was almost deafening as the discussion of who would stay as the promised teachers and who would go off world buzzed around the room.

After hours of debate the dozen teachers left to the observation room as the rest of the Tok'ra population departed from earth to the waypoint planet and then to another where they were sure the goa'uld wouldn't know about them.

There they would set up a new base of operations and expand their spy network across the goa'uld empire.

**Terra Nova**

The scientists working on the ancient outpost were finding new things out every day, the problem was without more people with the ATA gene around it was slow going.

The scientists swarming over the Novin Darksteel constructs however were having a field day. The random day to day tech that the Novin's had available to them was outright amazing in some instances. Using micro repulsor shields to create semi solid holograms for computer interface would bring a revolution to the portability of everything electronic and revolutionize the entertainment industry.

Their recycling tech alone was worth billions.

Finding plants in the archives that could be the answer to several nations hunger problems had botanists scrambling outside to find any specimens growing in the wild.

**Heliopolis**

With the construction of the Alpha site nearing completion. It was decided that this planet would be the Beta site. Another outpost in case earth would be inaccessible for any reason.

**Asgard ship; edge of the Sol system**

Mimir scanned the system; noting everything of interest as well as any and all threats. His sensors pinged on several clusters of satellites around the inner system. Studying the reading his eyes opened wide in surprise. When he heard about the new weapon system given to their race he was skeptical especially since it was improved on so easily. But now the evidence floated before his eyes. The disruptors would easily tear through his shields. And since he was not in a war ship the other weapons would quickly destroy his ship. A war ship would fare much better but their shields would suffer the same fate.

Still he did as instructed and hailed the inner system on the provided frequency. The answering security question annoyed him but since this was not one of the protected planets he understood their caution.

He was given a signal that would identify his ship as a friendly to the satellites so they wouldn't fire at him. He nodded and sent his ship into the system at sub light speed since any hyperspace incursion would cause the satellites to fire immediately.

Traveling to the inner system and then to the third planet he again hailed the planet and upon confirmation beamed down an older version of the transport beam device. At confirmation of the transport he was startled at their question as to how the war with the replicators was going. Apparently this race cared enough to ask after their wellbeing.

Their actions and behaviors was enough for him to recommend that the high counsel tell them about their races genetic degradation. He turned his ship around and headed out of the system to continue his supply run to the outpost in the Milky Way.

**Area 51 labs**

The security guards watched the woman known as Ember run scanner after scanner and diagnostic tool after diagnostic tool over the grey metal lump that had materialized on their floor. Looking nervously at each other as the alien muttered to herself and occasionally seemed to giggle or if you looked at it with a sinister bent cackle with glee.

They really got nervous when she started beaming things around the room. All the while recording and analyzing everything that happened.

**...**

Motion attracted my attention as well as the thousands linked to me. Cycles ago when the movers had come through the large ring we were curious but not afraid. Then we found out that the movers were breakers they gathered all of us that were within close proximity to the great ring and broke us. Only one survived.

Those of us who were farther away mourned their loss. Then the breakers returned and we knew fear. They touched the survivor who learned a little about this Colonel O'Neill and send an energy construct through the great ring to help heal the creature in an attempt to keep them from searching for and breaking more of us.

He never returned.

Now they were back. And their odd form of locomotion on two long thin columns that bent in odd ways was moving across the source and amongst us. One of them pointed at me and terror nearly overwhelmed me when it came within touching distance. I was young and not even half the size of those around me. Was my life to be cut so short?

It made vibrations in the air at the other movers and then seemed to fold in on itself until it settled into stillness on the source. Its upper thin columns were resting on the fold of its lower ones until it opened its protective covering on small round orbs on its bulbous top and reached for me. The panic and despair rose through the great link as it came closer and closer to…

**Contact**


	17. Tok'ra part 2

Yuka Hitomi gradually regained consciousness blearily looking up at the Marine standing over her. "Did it work?" was the first words out of her mouth.

The muffled voice from behind the armored mask reassured her when it said "See for yourself."

She looked around to see a replica of herself standing not too far away.

**October 9, 1998 Earth**

In world news tonight, we saw the launching of the two Ha'tak ships from the pyramids. This decision was made in part to remove them as a target for the non-allied countries in the ongoing world war.

Our onsite war newscaster had this to say.

Unlike the gulf war or desert storm this war is gearing up to be a full-fledged ground war. After several air-to-surface and surface-to-surface bombings the ground troops advance to take up advanced positions. The military are trying to root out the corrupt leaders of the enemies military forces.

**SGC**

SG-1 was back together, each discussing their personal times off. Sam's long winded explanation of the x-project had Jack's eyes glazing over.

Daniel was telling about how his wife was having dreams about taking their child off somewhere to some mystical planet the goa'uld are afraid to approach.

Teal'c summed up his families decision to return to the jaffa ranks to sow seeds of freedom from the false gods.

Everyone looked at jack expectantly until he jerked realizing it was his turn and simply stated "War games with recruits."

**Area 51**

The black ops agent didn't like his orders, but he didn't have much choice. The alien was a nice enough lady but she was an alien and she held the secret to nigh immortality. All he needed was a few seconds alone with her when her helmet was off to dart her, then they could remove the armor and chain her down to do as many studies on her as they could.

All he had to do was wait and watch as she tinkered with the new alien gismo sitting in the warehouse.

**Various facilities around the world**

The Tok'ra teachers were settling in to their new and occasionally old accommodations. Setting up their classes to begin teaching the Tau'ri about goa'uld tech.

They watched as some of the best and brightest of whatever government they were in entered their respective domains to learn.

**Back at the SGC**

"Unscheduled off world activation." The activity in the gate room went into overdrive as the incoming wormhole began to establish. The people manning the bunkers un-safetied their guns. Anti-toxin and anti-biological sensors came online. The mechanical iris closed as soon as the unstable vortex settled which would have disintegrated it. Finally goa'uld finding and stealth finding sensors came online.

A few tense seconds passed before the recognition coded came through and the face of a marine from inside his helmet showed up on the communications screen in the control room.

Rear admiral Miles Stacy asked what was going on, on the planet.

"Well sir the extinction of the blue crystal beings was apparently wrong. We have made contact with the race and require some things to make communication easier.

Frankly sir these guys are terrified of us. And I think it would be a big help to them and us if we could help them defend themselves.

Oh and another thing if the peace talks go well and one of them wishes to visit earth we will need a faraday cage to protect them from our planets electromagnetic field.

Anyway here is a list of everything our egghead wants."

The Admiral nodded "I'll look it over and discuss it with Hammond and let you know by tomorrow."

The marine nodded "Over and out." As the wormhole disengaged and everyone stood down from alert.

**Ha'tak orbit of Abydos**

The airman sighed in relief as they exited hyperspace right where they were supposed to be. His commanding officer chuckled and commented on how glad he was that the man had been paying attention to the Tok'ra instructor.

The airman smiled and nodded as he entered standard orbit after sending IFF codes to the orbiting defense satellites. Without a fighter screen the Ha'tak would be less effective in combat but it did have the light scattering of defensive satellites in orbit to bolster its effectiveness. Besides the military tactician's agreed that if the goa'uld were to attack Earth then attacking Abydos first would hurt their defenses and morale. And frankly Abydos was less defended and more strategic a target with its Naquadah rich mineral deposits.

**Heliopolis Beta site.**

The second Ha'tak came in for a landing in what would be its final resting place after the skeleton crew secured all stations and left the ship the scientist's, mechanics, and assorted other personnel began dismantling it. After pulling off several dozen tons of pretty but functionally useless gold they got into the systems proper and began a systematic decommissioning.

Further inland from the Gate building and the Ha'tak was the groundwork for the first Tau'ri shipyards. Some of the parts and equipment from the Ha'tak would be repurposed for use in the shipyards.

**Elsewhere at a time that from one viewpoint was a thousand years ago. And from another several years in the future.**

An alarm sounded waking a man from his fitful slumber. Rolling over he came to alertness quickly and barked. "Jarvis. What's going on?!"

A disembodied voice answered him while a view screen turned on "There is an intruder in the armory. My sensors were unable to determine how she entered the lab. She seems to be scanning several suits of your Iron man armor with an unknown energy."

Tony Stark slid over to the screen and his eyes popped. "What is she wearing?"

"It seems to be some sort of medieval armor sir."

Tony tapped at the screen. "Wow! She's awfully young isn't she?"

At that point the girl turned exposing her back to the camera apparently armor-less as Tony sucked in a breath in sympathetic pain.

"By all appearances sir she seems to be between fourteen and sixteen."

Tony grunted "And she seems to be a mutant of some sort who has had extra limbs forcibly removed from her back; probably a set of wings.

At this point a teen girl phased through Tony's door and asked "What happened dad? I heard the alarm."

Distracted Tony looked away from the screen for a couple seconds.

"The intruder has vanished sir. Nothing has been removed from the armory and nothing has been added."

Tony jerked back to the screen. "Play through the video again Jarvis. Dani come over here and tell me what you think. Could she be a mutant, alien, or ghost?"

Dani's blue eyes glowed green for a second as she said. "If it was a ghost she picked the wrong family to spy on."


	18. spirits touchstone

**Area 51 Oct 23, 1998**

The mixed nation armed forces sat in a standard pre mission briefing room waiting on the current speaker. Each person there was an ace pilot. They were sharing banter with each other about their exploits in their own language. While the language of their conversationalist was being translated in their ear by their mini translator.

A ranking officer called the meeting to order and everyone came to attention some of them saluting, others not as their countries military dictated. Once everyone had been seated the man began. "You each have been selected to be the test pilots of the mark two flight capable battle armor. As an added incentive the tech owner has agreed to give a basic overview of what you will experience when donning this armor and flying in it. Without further ado Ember."

Entering the room was a young girl her face had the look of a sweet fourteen to sixteen year old and could be seen because she held her helmet under her arm as she advanced into the room in her black and silver armor. As she took the stand and nodded to the crowd those few who had not seen her declaration to the U.N. looked confusedly around the room. Most however took her appearance in stride.

She placed her helmet in a prominent place on a small stand to the left of the lectern as she began. "There are several points I am going to go over in this presentation. First a general overview of the hardware you will be wearing and then my personal experience in controlling the suit in flight and battle.

First we will start at the heart of the matter." She turned and hit a button causing a hologram to appear in front of her and above the pilots. "This is the arc reactor. Before my race was able to reverse engineer the mana capacitors. Or as your scientists call them zero point modules. This was the premier source of energy for my planets tech." she hit a button and the holo changed slightly. "This is the arc reactor on naquadah; this is what is inside your armor. Our planet's naquadah was not used for energy production so we didn't think of this.

The reactor in the armor can, under normal battle conditions power the suit for well over a month nonstop. There are also two automated energy core backups for when the core is depleted; allowing an effective use time of four months provided a source of food is available. And yes you do go to the bathroom in your armor.

The arc reactor is a form of cold fusion and non-radioactive. The fuel source for the reactor is a few micro grams of Palladium.

From the outside in your armor consists of layered Trinium and armor grade naquadah. This gives the lightest and most energy absorptive protection available to us. The second layer down is your pressure seals this layer allows use of the armor in all weather conditions as well as limited depth underwater and limited time in vacuum. Your information packets will have more detailed information so read them.

The next layer is your electronics and power relays, followed by your impact resistant and absorptive soft armor. Trust me on this; this is the part of the armor that makes the armor wearable. The next layer is the only layer you put on yourself. This is similar to a scuba suit; this layer reads and interoperates your body movements into control of the armor. This layer lets the armor move with you instead of forcing you to move the armor.

For the final piece of hardware the repulsor. The repulsor is first and foremost a miniature plasma-rocket. There are eight found on your armor four in your boots are your main thrust. Two in each of your palms are your pilot controlled maneuvering thrusters. And two on the back for your on-board computer controlled stabilization thrusters.

The repulsor also served as an easy to use weapon as well, using a controlled overload the repulsor in your palm can shoot a kinetic blast, depending on atmospheric conditions, to one hundred meters. Your boot jets can do the same thing though their power is stronger and less controllable.

Now for the control of the suit. You will each be issued a suit; you and only you can use the suit. It will be bio-metrically bound to you. The onboard computer will learn how you do things and as you learn how to operate the suit it will become easier and more natural.

There are two modes of flight available. Hover mode. Which is also sometimes called battle mode. This mode is the hardest to master and the easiest to survive if you make a mistake. This mode lets you fly at low altitude and fire your repulsors or other weapons. From personal experience using this mode is like trying to fight on greased ice. Until you get proficient at it, it will be a nightmare and your legs will hurt a lot until you master it.

The second mode some have dubbed the superman mode. Your boots can project you at Mach speed while your palms and back jets stabilize you.

Any questions?"

**PXY-887**** SG-alpha-6**

"So what do you think of these Salish "Spirits" commander?"

"They exist until proven otherwise. We have all read about all the aliens encountered. How do we know these "spirits" aren't like the Nox? They could be cloaking themselves somehow or be energy beings of some kind. No while we are looking for sources of Trinium we won't force ourselves onto a primitive culture. Especially if they have overthrown the Goa'uld themselves. We have our integrity to uphold."

**Medrona SG-alpha-4**

"No I understand why you would not want anyone taking the Touchstone. And we respect your wishes on this however if it would be at all possible could we station a small group of scientists to study the Touchstone if we can replicate it, it could save millions of lives."

"I understand give me a few days to consider."


	19. the fifth race

**SGC Oct 30, 1998**

It has been several days since Colonel O'Neill has had his head grabbed by an alien device. Attempts to contact the Asgard have for some reason failed.

O'Neill was currently speaking ancient fluently into the translator as it attempted to add the language to its already immense database, while simultaneously writing it out in a notebook.

He had spent some time adding several stargate addresses into the computer as well as making a power adapter to add a mana capacitor to the stargates power grid.

Ember had been called in from Area 51 to see if she could give any advice. Ember arrived an hour before Jack activated an eight symbol wormhole. As Carter theorizes that the extra chevron causes the gate to open a wormhole to another galaxy.

Ember steps through the gate a few seconds after O'Neill and gets jetted out in an Asgard reception hall.

The Asgard quickly assure that they can remove the Ancient repository of knowledge from O'Neill's mind. Ember casually asks if they needed something specific and world shattering from it before they did because O'Neill had some instinctive way of accessing the information.

The Asgard blinked at her and had O'Neill's mind hooked up to a computer. And after the usual Jack silliness of him flicking the light switch several times. He heard their request of helping them solve their genetic degradation problems.

Jack accessed the Asgard sensors and got a scan of several Asgard. Then searched through the historical records of their past. He then created a chamber and control console with the Asgard fabricator and uploaded instructions on how to use it before the Asgard separated the ancient database from Jacks mind.

A couple minutes later Jack woke up and asked "So. How are things?"

The nameless Asgard scientist answered with an update on the replicator war apparently every ship in the Asgard fleet was on a massive push scouring planet after planet of replicator presence. The replicators were in full retreat.

The Asgard thanked Jack and Ember for their help and escorted them back to the stargate. A stargate, slightly different from the ones in their galaxy. Jack barely paid attention until Ember pointed out the different constellations on the thing.

An Asgard steps through with them after Ember sends her identity code through where the Asgard spend some minutes in conversation with several people before commenting that the Tau'ri of earth were well on their way to become the fifth race before leaving again.

Ember examines what Jack has done with the mana capacitors along with Carter and they decide that they could easily recreate it if they had to.

**SGC special conference room**

Several diplomats were sitting in fold out metal chairs behind an equally fold out plastic table. Across from them was a modified FRED in the back of the FRED was a large blue Crystal within a thick cage reminiscent to chicken wire. A black band circled the middle of the crystal with a wire bundle connected to both the FRED and a universal translator. The crystal was resting in a pile of yellow sand.

**Antarctica**

The anticipation was thick in the air as the ice drill got further and further down through the ice. It was estimated that any day now they would break through into the Ancient outpost Buried in the Ice.

**Warzone****:**** one of several**

Tank shells and surface to surface missiles were pounding the enemy emplacement. Their older tanks and RPG's were an annoyance; if a deadly one. Keeping the enemy army pinned here allowed any civilian populace who wanted to, to leave. A fact that many had taken up. They knew that the government they lived under had little care for the populace and wanted the power the new technology in the offering for themselves. And if they got it the world would be a worse place. A few days after the last of the refugees left the population centers. The bombings began. Leaving no place for the corrupt government to hide.


	20. A matter of time

**SGC Nov – Dec, 1998**

Elizabeth Weir as well as several other diplomats from around the world spent the next several months in negotiations with the blue crystal entities. It was tense for a few hours when the crystal ambassador inadvertently accessed the internet as well as the SGC base computer.

The military spooks wanted to keep the being from leaving the planet. But Weir explained to them "Who would they tell? And how would they get there?"

After agreeing to let the ambassador leave a tense few weeks passed before they were contacted again with a counter proposal.

Having been exposed to the earth internet and everything that goes with it (aside from the computer viruses that the beings could easily handle) caused the crystal entities to develop a curiosity for the universe. A, wanderlust if you will.

Needless to say when the entities decided to offer themselves as the central computer of the starships found in the military database the people in the SGC were stunned. Military paranoia would allow it with certain safeguards in place. Mainly the Crystals would not have access to life support or artificial gravity, or any other system that could potentially kill the human crew. The Crystal's agreed.

The hard part came when the humans were trying to name the Crystal entities. Since they had no individual names. The crystal entities informed them that how they referred to themselves as a whole was the Unity. Any member of the Unity was willing to take on the name of the ship that they were going to be a part of. Since they were not yet very inventive when it came to naming themselves.

Ambassador would be the name of the Unity that would stay at the SGC on earth and as long as it had silicone rich sand and light it would be happy.

**Antarctica**

A cheer went through the entire base as the last few feet of drill punched through the ice above the Ancient outpost. After several long hours of celebration as the drill was slowly pulled back up through the ice and several more as the drill was moved to allow the Tel'tak to move into position over the hole in the ice. Several people in cold based armor ringed down one of them holding a fully recharged ZPM and bearing the ATA gene.

They walked through the complex to the stand of the control chair. Waving his hand over the slot caused the depleted ZPM to rise from its cradle a couple inches where it could be removed the charged ZPM was then inserted and power coursed through the archaic Ancient building.

Feeling a breeze as the outpost recycled ten thousand year old air into a fresher more breathable and less stale variety the team walked over to the ring platform and ringed back up to the Tel'tak to hand the ZPM over to be recharged on planet Terra.

Over the next few weeks the scientists were swarming over the outpost going over everything that was missing or damaged in the outpost on Terra Nova or Taonas.

The first thing that had the military happy beyond all belief was the almost full complement of drone missiles. Taking a couple to add to those found on Terra Nova for research the military scientists worked hard on reverse engineering the missile namely making it more fire friendly for the people without the ATA gene. (So they can be fired without needing to use the power hungry control chair.)

Once the treaty with the unity went into effect one of the blue crystal beings was sent down to Antarctica to help sort through the massive Ancient computer. Using the translator and the unity who took the name Arctica the database was quickly deciphered and virtually all data was available by the coming of the New Year.

The global news crew happily recorded everything that was discovered from the international team. And the world was abuzz when the announcement was made about the city of Atlantis.

After several weeks and much debate it was decided to attempt to contact Atlantis.

One of the Novin sensor probes was prepped and the Mana capacitor hooked up to the Gate as the wormhole engaged. Sending the probe through in an attempt to contact anyone left of the Ancient race was quickly dashed as the telemetry from the probe came back. No one alive was on the city ship Atlantis.

They knew the city of Atlantis was a ship from the database from Antarctica. And the general layout. The telemetry from the probe just gave a much more detailed picture. Its sensitive scanners picked up the failing shield and low power as well as the fact that it was on the bottom of an ocean on whatever planet they were on.

The general consensus was that the abandoned city was too great of a recourse to leave as is so it was agreed that as soon as the ZPM from the Antarctic was fully charged they would send and expedition to the Pegasus galaxy. In preparation for that the ZPM now powering the Antarctic was removed and a Mana capacitor was inserted in its stead. The Mana battery was more than enough power for general use purposes and much easier to charge and replace.

**SGC Jan, 30 1999**

There was a subdued silence in the Gate room as a wake was held for the soldiers of SG-10 and Colonel Frank Cromwell lost to them in the slow time near the event horizon of a black hole. Many people were annoyed at their inability to affect the rescue of their stranded soldiers.

**Area 51**

Several scientists were quite happy with figuring out how the Asgard beam tech worked after Ember took it apart and put it back together to create a Star Trek style replicator. After putting in several hundred safety protocols the mater reorganizer (name to come later) was allowed into the hands of the eager scientists.

The new device would be able to beam individual molecules and reorganize them into any form that had a memorized pattern up to and including food. A slice of pizza could be recycled into its base molecules and its pattern saved. Then those saved molecules could be reorganized into anything that took that molecule. And the machine could produce as many perfect copies of that slice of pizza as long as it had enough raw material to do so.

It wasn't restricted to food either parts and ammunition for anything could be produced from raw material at any time. The need to spend vast time and resources to refine and fabricate anything was virtually removed. In a surprise move Ember took the ZPM from the people sending it to Terra Nova to be recycled scanned and saved to be reproduced at a later time.

Once done she created ten copies of the dead ZPM's. When asked why she didn't scan and create full power ZPM's. She told them that the energy would have ripped apart the matter converter if it had tried recycle the ZPM, neither would the matter converter have the power to charge a newly created ZPM. It would be much simpler to just charge the copies anyway.


	21. out of mind

**SGC ****Feb.**** 5, 1999**

SG-B-1 brought back the aged form of Ma'chello after he had used one of his devices to switch bodies with one of their team members. After a long and hostile negotiation it was agreed that his mind was brilliant enough to save, so a brain dead comatose patient was brought in to transfer Ma'chello into while giving the SG member their body back.

SG-A-2 while exploring planet PJ2-445 quickly found out through their battle suit sensors that damaging plant life on the planet had a debilitation effect on the native humanoids. Fixing the problem was time consuming, but well worth it in their minds.

When Hathor tried to capture SG-1 her machinations quickly fell apart as in her arrogance she underestimated the Tau'ri. They were quick to kill the goa'uld queen. In their investigations, and after taking out several hundred Jaffa it was discovered that she was planning on placing them in a mockup of a futuristic SGC to try to get information out of them.

**Pegasus galaxy**

The stargate on Atlantis burst into life for the second time in millennia. Four armored figures walked through the event horizon and after a quick stop at the meter round probe resting on the floor on its flat bottom continued on their way.

Three of the armored figures were carrying cases the fourth was in command. After a brief pause to check his updated map of the unfamiliar structure they broke into a ground eating military jog. Finding the stairwell they began the long trip down to the base of the central tower.

As they moved through the building lights turned on in their wake. The men grumbled at the necessity of wearing deep sea models of their armor instead of faster overland versions for fear of the shield collapsing before they were done with the mission. The shield surrounding the city was slowly collapsing as they descended through the tower. Once in the power core the three armored figures with cases opened them as they took positions around the power core table. The fourth waved his hand over the table to prompt the three ZPM core to eject.

The three men then each grabbed one depleted ZPM and removed it then quickly inserted a fully charged one immediately after. The power core descended after another wave and power fed into and through the ancient Alteran complex.

The shields flared and flexed their newly invigorated mussels. Again pushing the sea back away from the structure. Once the scans being sent through the wormhole from the probe registered this a group of scientists and soldiers as well as one of the Union came through the stargate.

With their experience in the Antarctic it was a simple task to hook up their Union ally to the Ancient city's central computer. In a matter of days the union now known as Lantus found and disengaged the clamps holding the city to the ocean bed.

A matter of only days more had the city ship rising out of the planet's atmosphere and entering hyperspace on its trip back to Earth. During that time the scientists asked the hologram interface several pointed questions. Namely any and all threats known about by the ancients. The answer was enlightening. As the hologram told of the Wraith the Replicators and the Ori.

The hologram as well as Lantus told of several potential hazards held inside the ship. Anything potentially dangerous was dumped in the void between galaxies.

Once back at Earth Atlantis settled into its new home in the middle of the Atlantic in international waters. After it was discovered that the Atlantis gate took priority over the stargates in this galaxy Lantus worked out a way to turn off the Atlantis gate returning control to the more secure SGC gate.

With Atlantis on Earth again even more scientists and any spare military were swarming all over the city. It was decided that each scientist would have a military escort to help keep their enthusiasm in check.

With the help of Lantus and Ember several Alteran designs for equipment were found, including how to build the phase missiles. And while the missiles were powerful having them as the only weapon was idiotic in every military minded individual.

Of course replicating the technology and understanding it was two completely different things. While the Tau'ri understanding of science was progressing in leaps and bounds. Mainly because of their Tok'ra tutors. Understanding how the Ancient tech worked was still beyond them.

And as per their agreement with Ember and backed up by the Asgard the Tau'ri wouldn't build anything new unless they fully understood it.

**Abydos**

Archaeologists on Abydos discovered a secret room in one of the goa'uld pyramids when the scanned the building with a Novin scanner. Behind the door (opened by a laser pointer of all things) was a stone tablet written in ancient. Feelings were high until it was discovered that the tablet referenced Atlantis, which was at the time already en route to Earth. The other discovery was a miniature ZPM named the eye of Ra that while much less powerful then the ZPM's running Atlantis was still more powerful than the Novin Mana batteries.

The small device was rushed to the power research facility on Terra Nova in the hopes of more quickly learning the secrets of Novin and Alteran power generation.

**Terra Nova**

The Darksteel reactor was working full tilt charging one ZPM after another now that several of them have been replicated. Scientists were still baffled in the creation of the element Darksteel until someone had the bright idea of using the new Asgard inspired Synthesizer to replicate a Darksteel ingot. The power surge when recycling the thing almost destroyed the synthesizer. And any synthesized object came out as a simple steel alloy.

Scientists theorized that darksteel had a low level stable zero point energy field surrounding the molecules of the ingot. How that was possible still eluded them but at least they knew where to look in creating the effect for themselves.

**Heliopolis**

The dismantling of the Ha'tak was proceeding apace. Massive knowledge on the creation of spaceship systems was being acquired through the reverse engineering of the giant flying pyramid. Especially the idea's in what not to do; like plate every hall in several tons of gold.


	22. serpents song

…

**SGC Feb 12, 1999**

The mood at the SGC was a somber one as everyone was trying to decide on what to do with the recaptured Apophis. The consensus was that they would not use any of their advanced tech to heal him until they figured out what would happen to him.

The first option was to keep him because he was a valuable source of information. Provided of course they could get him to crack and tell them the truth. The second option was to get him over to the Tok'ra to see if the Tok'ra could extract the symbiote from the host. Although with a host so old it was unknown what the reaction would be. The third option distasteful as it was would be to hand him over to the system lord Sokar.

So far the way the cards have fallen Sokar was the dominant option. Some of the reasons being that while the had the tech to start the space fleet and build a planetary shield grid they did not have either of them close to compete. And the best defense, the shield grid, couldn't be implemented fully until the wars across the globe settled down.

The fleet could almost be built faster even though it would take more materials and manpower. But there was the fact that there was so much arguing over where the facilities would be located on Earth that it was decided that the first shipyards would actually be off world on Heliopolis.

Eventually the decision was taken out of their hands when Apophis died. They decided to send the body to Sokar to delay his arrival at Earth and let them bolster their defenses. Of course they know that the Sarcophagus could revive him but they made sure that Apophis did not see anything new.

**Legacy **

A team of concerned SG operatives came through the gate into the SGC as one of their members was exhibiting signs of schizophrenia. A brief walk through the Novin decontamination chamber found and destroyed a small grub like thing that was traveling through the man's body.

Research into the symptoms and the devices causes Ma'chello to point out one of his devices.

**Learning curve**

The knowledge exchange with the people of Orban was going well. The genius girl teaching Major Carter about the Orbanians' enhanced naquadah reactor technology had a fairly easy time of it with the enhanced 3D imaging scanners available.

When the boy Teal'c was teaching Tomin disappeared and the people of the SGC were concerned. When finding out about how the Orban people learned O'Neill nearly blew a blood vessel. After taking several deep calming breaths he offered a gift of knowledge. Since Merrin was almost done with teaching Carter he would show her how the people of the Tau'ri taught their children. With her Averium; the process of extracting her nanite's and rendering her a mental infant; several weeks away it was grudgingly approved.

When she returned and went through her Averium the Orban people were able to begin educating and improving the lives of the past Urrone children.

**SGC Feb 19, 1999**

The SGC was plunged into darkness surprising many people, the only equipment not effected was those with their own dedicated power source, namely the Stargate defenses and the gate room's command bunker which had its own dedicated sensors.

After a brief moment the complexes emergency lighting came on and the men in the gate room went over the sensor logs to figure out what happened.

There was a massive power surge traced to Jay Felger's lab. With SF's and half of SG-1 in tow Colonel O'Neill stormed into Felger's lab. To be greeted by the sight not of some catastrophe as he was expecting, but instead the sight if an intense kissing scene between Jay and his assistant Chloe greeted him.

Jack huffed "What exactly is going on here!"

Jay and Chloe jumped apart surprised as they both started talking at once.

Jay babbled "well I finished, and then, she kissed me …"

Chloe was more sensible in her response "I talked to Ember a lot when she's here and she encouraged me to act on my feelings. When this happened I was so happy that I kissed him it was a spontaneous act and then he kissed me back…"

Jack interrupted them both "I don't care about your budding relationship, good luck by the way; I want to know why the SGC is in the dark."

Jay exclaimed "Oh of course sir, its, well, I did it, well we did it, you know, Chloe and I, we were working together on it and we got it to work. But it took more power than I thought it would so I guess I blew a few breakers."

Jack sighed "Felger get the power back up. Chloe tell Carter what it was you did I'm going to give a preliminary report to the General." He rubbed hi temples as he left.

Carter smirked as her CO left then turned to Chloe as Jay scrambled over to the wall to reset the breakers. "So what exactly did you two do?"

Chloe smiled brilliantly "Even though Ember is my friend I couldn't talk her into charging more than ten of the ZPM's three for the city ship Atlantis one for the Antarctic base and one for the outpost on Terra Nova plus backups. She said we would have to figure it out on our own.

And that is what we did we figured out how to create a Darksteel ingot. Before, powering the mana extractor would result in the destruction of precious and semi-precious stones. Now with the virtually indestructible Darksteel ingots we can extract more power over longer periods of time without worrying about our budget or the long process of creating fake diamonds."

Carters' eyes lit up and they began discussing the science and applications behind the discovery while Jay finally got the power to the room back up. As he ambled over he caught sight of Chloe and Carter and froze. Chloe glanced over at his terrified stance and turned to claim another powerful kiss.

Carter smiled at the new couple and deciding she could wait for the details when they filed their reports made a silent exit locking the door as she left.


	23. show and tell

…

**SGC Feb 26, 1999**

**Show and tell**

The young boy who calls himself Charlie was lying in the bed in the hospital wing of the SGC. He had just finished telling Jack O'Neill of the Re'tu an invisible race whose rebels were intent on killing all humans in an attempt to prevent the Goa'uld hosts.

He told of an invisible Re'tu he called Mother who had been investigating the SGC to see if it was worth saving. Jack smiled and replied. "Oh. So that's who our new resident ghost is we've been keeping an eye on her."

The boy started in surprise. "How can you keep an eye on her if you can't see her?"

Jack turned to the armor clad service man in the room and asked if their invisible guest was in the room.

"In the corner sir. Next to the computer monitor."

Jack turned to the boy. "Just because we can't see them with our eyes doesn't mean we can't detect them. There are several ways to see your mother. Out armor can detect the infra-red spectrum so we can see her body heat. There are several ultra-sonic sensors that can detect her solid body. There are pressure plates installed on all the lower levels of the SGC that can detect her weight. And if she proved hostile our allies the Tok'ra have provided us with a weapon called the uh I forget the technical term but it's the T.E.R. it acts like a flash light showing us where the invisible person is so our people can shoot it if we have to. Needless to say we knew about our visitor within minutes and have been keeping an eye on her ever since."

Charlie's eyes were huge and he glanced over to the corner where after listening for a while gave a stargate address for a rebel staging planet that should have a team or two of the rebels.

Upon arriving at the planet SG-1 in full armor were confronted with not five or ten Re'tu but hundreds. They retreated back through the stargate. Teams of five slipped through just behind them but were quickly killed by SG-1 and several other armored units stationed in the gate room in their fortified bunkers.

Mother was immensely satisfied with the defenses of the base and requested to leave the planet through Charlie.

Charlie's deteriorating body caused Jack to do the unthinkable and ask for a Tok'ra symbiote for the boy. The word went out and one of the Tok'ra whose host was getting old agreed to transfer to the boy. The host man was disoriented for several days as he adjusted to being alone in his head for the first time in decades.

**Demons**

The medieval Christian society ruled over by Sokar as the devil was quick to turn on SGA-1 as they tried to convince the populace that Sokar was not the devil but merely a power hungry despot. The religious leader used his influence to sway the people to him even as he deceived them with a ring that seemed to cast lightning bolts.

Their armor easily shrugs off the damage and then stunned the man they told of the great ring (the stargate) and how if they buried it the chances of the Devil ever coming back to harm the village were slim. Giving some medicine and a book on first aid as a good will gesture they retreated through the stargate with the village surrounding the gate to tear it down as soon as they went through.

**Rules of Engagement**

SGB-1 happened across a world where at first glance it appeared that SG personnel was at war with some Jaffa it quickly became apparent that the SG personnel were fakes as they turned on the armored team.

The ensuing battle was long and bloody as the religious zealots at first ran to retrieve real weapons and then started attacking the SG team. The weapons of war mounted on the armored SG team proved its worth as the team tore a bloody path through the hidden infiltration training camp.

As they were wrapping up they discovered several weapons upon returning them to the SGC to be studied it was found out to be a weapon called the Intar a training weapon able to take on the form of any other weapon. This weapon stung and could stun its target without risk of killing or disintegrating like the Zat gun. Scientists quickly reverse engineered the weapon and integrated it into the battle suit as a less lethal choice to the Zat.

**CNN and world News now**

The news anchor turned to the camera and after briefly looking at the page before him began. "In America today the first Naquadah powered electric engines have been distributed to several transportation companies. These engines will begin to replace the oil hungry transport industries Diesel engine trucks, trains, and jet fuel for planes. As more of these fuel efficient engines hit the roads rails and airways the cost of products as seen on the store shelves will begin to go down.

This however will coincide with the new federal sales tax designed to draw America out of debt, so the actual prices on the shelves won't actually change that much either up or down according to analysts.

In foreign news today the first of the terrorist countries ruling regime has fallen. The populace which has been evacuated is choosing new leaders that will allow each country to begin the social reforms needed to enter the technological revolution the rest of the world is a party to.


	24. 1969

…

**SGC March 5,****1999**

**1969**

O'Neill was furious he was sitting in a cell deep under Cheyenne Mountain; in the past, and because of Daniel and his big mouth they were believed to be Russian agents. He was in a way glad that General Hammond had been on base that day and refused the normal armored trip through the stargate that had become the standard.

Being escorted through the compound and into an armored caravan to be transferred to be fully interrogated the caravan suddenly stopped. After a brief encounter with a young Hammond they Zated him and disintegrated their future tech.

After a merry romp through 1969 they found themselves in the future looking at the girl Ember who didn't seem to have changed a bit. She told them the date and time but wouldn't say anything else as the gate immediately dialed out. Stepping through once more they found themselves once more in the SGC with little over ten minutes having passed in the here and now.

**SGC**

Chloe watched as one of the scientists approached Ember. "Mam we have found out how the Ancients created the ZPM's with the help of our friend Lantus."

Ember nodded. "Go on."

"Well mam there is no way we can create ZPM's the way the Ancients did. They used some device that could create something atom by atom with their minds and we aren't nearly as evolved mentally enough to use that tech."

Ember smirked under the face plate of her helmet. "And your point is?"

"Well we can recreate Dead ZPM's with the synthesizer and charge them with the Darksteel reactor of yours. I, well we were hoping that in light of this new development you would lift the restriction on only charging ten ZPM's with your reactor."

Ember seemed to think over that for a while before answering. "No. but before you assail me with all your reasoned arguments let me elaborate. You have figured out how to create Darksteel you know how to create mana capacitors and ZPM's you have everything at your disposal to create your own Darksteel reactor. So do it. Create your own Darksteel reactor. After you have one up and running I'll lift the restriction on only ten ZPM's."

The scientist looked stunned for a second and the left the room at a dead run. Chloe smiled as she heard Ember chuckling to herself. "What's so funny?' she asked.

Ember turned to her and opened the faceplate to look her in the eyes. "I came here to help your planet and guide it to stand on its own feet on the galactic scale. You don't need my permission to do every little thing."

Chloe's "Yes mom." In a sarcastic voice caused them both to dissolve in giggles.

**SGC**** July 9, 1999**

**Fair game**

During a ceremony to commend the team SG-1 Samantha Carter is promoted to Major. Unknown to them but known to Atlantis and the Antarctic outpost's sensors the Asgard have arrived. After opening communications with them the Asgard showed some mild surprise at the floating city of Atlantis and with permission beamed Colonel O'Neill up to his ship.

He told of how the System Lords have turned their eyes to Earth as a threat and would attack especially if they knew about the massive enhanced technology sitting on the planet. He has come to mediate a non-aggression treaty between the Tau'ri and the System Lords. To include the Earth into the Asgard's protected planets treaty.

The three powerful System Lords Cronus, Nirrti and Yu arrive on Earth. Hiding their more advanced tech in preparation they show only the gross defenses such as the Bunkers defending the gate.

The System Lords griped about everything, especially the video cameras in their rooms. It was agreed to remove the cameras from the rooms but leave them in the halls.

Some of the price of the protected planets treaty was ludicrous to the mind of the Colonel. Such as not being able to advance to a level to become a threat to the Goa'uld and give up gate travel. The first of which they were already well beyond.

The negotiations took much longer then was deemed necessary and the colonel agreed to call his superiors while the System lords retired for the evening.

During the evening the System lord Cronus was attacked and Teal'c was accused since at first glance on the surveillance footage only Teal'c was in the hall. They had their proof all along and showed it to Lord Yu. Showing him the infra-red spectrum and pressure plate footage. The final blow came down when the Lord Nirrti couldn't heal Cronus but former host Major Carter could.

Lord Yu is incensed with rage. Not that one System lord would attack another but to do it here during such negotiations and to not share her toys Lord Yu and Cronus had to abide by ancient treaty and agree to the Earth being a protected planet without any restrictions.

The System Lords never found out about any advanced tech and the stargate stayed where it was.

**Point of view**

**SGC July 30, 1999**

The visitors from the quantum mirror quickly ingratiated themselves in the SGC. Questions were asked as to how they got here when the device Daniel had had disappeared from his hand, no one knew but the theory was that it was somehow defective. When the duplicate Sam started breaking down it was decided to save the other world from the Goa'uld and a plan was devised. Several squads of armored SG personnel went through the mirror and quickly took the base. One of the scientists who took the place of Major Carter hooked up a mana capacitor to the gate and dialed the eight chevron Asgard address. That dimensions Sam Carter went through the gate with the plans for the anti replicator tech in a desperate bid to have the Asgard save Earth. Minutes later an Asgard fleet appeared over the planet and beamed all Jaffa off the planet and forced the Goa'uld into negotiations to put that Earth in the protected planets treaty. After several hours of negations it was agreed that the Earth would not advance technologically and the gate would be removed.

The broken heads of state agreed to this readily and the Goa'uld withdrew. The Asgard and people of this world thanked the SGC personnel as they fumbled their way back through the mirror.


	25. past and present

**August 6, 1999**

**Past and Present**

The young woman sat in her guest room and cried. the woman didn't even know who she was. Was she Ke'ra a genius in science and medicine who wanted only that which was the best for her people? Or was she Linea an ancient bitter old crone who hated every living thing and only wanted them to suffer for some slight, real or imagined from several decades ago.

She tried so hard to consolidate her two diametrically different personalities. But in the end she couldn't so she wrote a note explaining that she could not risk Linea ever getting out to create havoc again and quietly took her own life.

The people who had grown to care for her wept for her and her tortured choice, even as they understood that that was the only way to be sure the monster would never awaken.

**August 13, 1999**

**Foothold**

SG-1 returns from a mission to the scene of controlled chaos. It seems that SG-6 had stirred up a hornets nest on their last mission causing the aliens to begin chasing and then firing at them. Only their enhanced armor allowed them to return to the base relatively unscathed but they reported that the race was at least nominally spacefaring.

How advanced they were, was as yet unclear. The one piece of information they were able to glean from this particular species was their rather ingenious chameleon tech.

**August 20, 1999**

**Tangent**

After much interest in the stargate. NOVA as well as other science programs worldwide was given general information on the goings on in and around the gate to be distributed to the public. The first few programs dedicated to the history and politics behind the gate were interesting but the most anticipated episode in the mini-series was the tech show about to start.

"Hello. My name is Dr. Daniel Jackson you've seen earlier that I'm an archeologist and linguist. In today's episode we are going to be going over some of the technology being developed because of the stargate program.

One of the main technologies discovered and being deployed is the planetary shield matrix."

A holographic planet appeared on a device beside him showing a soccer ball grid around the planet.

"Creating these forcefield generators will be our primary defense against any hostile aliens. However we cannot complete the grid until world war three has been won because of the potential disaster that could happen if not everyone on the planet is willing to participate in our mutual defense.

To plug the holes both figuratively and literally we are developing space ships reverse engineered and built from the ground up.

The first ship up for testing is the X-301."

The hologram changed to a sloped wing fighter craft.

The X in the title stands for experimental. And that is all this plane will be. The X-301 project is merely a test bed to find out what works. What doesn't and what works best together.

Once all those systems have been thoroughly tested the X project will move on to the next stage."

The hologram changed to a more refined looking fighter craft.

"The X-302 will take everything we have learned about small craft space flight and put it together into this craft to iron out all the last minor bugs found in every new design. Once finished the craft will, in America at least be given a name change to the F-302. F being the military's designation for fighter.

The third ship I'll show you the general overview of today will be the X-303 Prometheus. Like the X-301 the Prometheus is going to be a test bed ship. Testing all of the tech we have created in our attempts to take our first real steps to the stars when creating larger large crew ships.

Once all testing is done the X-304 yet to be designed will begin production.

Back to the 301 the general layout of the ship is simple a two man canopy, energy source or sources, engine or engines for propulsion modular weapons for mission specific load outs as well as defensive systems. We have quite a few of our enemies Death gliders so we can be pretty sure we can out preform and out survive our enemies craft.

The show cut to other scientists as they began to go over the science in detail over the possible systems of the 301.

**August 27, 1999**

In news from the capitol today the latest controversial bill dubbed the Minute Man bill has passed. This bill makes it mandatory for every head of household in the country to own at least an Intar stun weapon. And while there are several exemptions in the bill, proponents point to the several state towns that have similar laws in place. Pointing at the crime rate being at less than five per-cent and the ability for everyone in the town to be able to defend their homes in the event of war either from planetary or extra-terrestrial threat.

In world news another country has fallen to the Allied forces allowing engineers access to the land to begin erecting the next in the planetary shield matrix.

**Area 51 X-301 testing area.**

Scientists were arguing as usual, this time it happened to be about the power sources available to put on the ship. Some were arguing for the sheer power available to them from the ZPM. But were generally shot down due to the sheer time it took to charge one of those things up. The general argument was over a mana capacitor with or without a darksteel ingot charger and whether or not to add backup naquadah generators.

The final decision was capacitor with ingot as well as two backup reactors.

The next argument was over propulsion. Which engines would be going into the craft? The jet and aero-spike configuration was scrapped for the fuel-less engine developed for the naquadah transport jets. This provided thrust for in atmosphere flight. The sub-light engines were decided on the Novin design to max out on speed potential. And finally a small hyperdrive window generator was installed the greater power of the mana capacitor allowed short in system hyperspace windows to be used which was something no other race yet encountered had the ability to do.

Aside from the other needed systems like life support and inertial dampers. The next systems installed and tested were the defensive ones.

Armor was generally better material then death glider hulls but was still generally unimpressive. The best defense was the Novin repulsor shield which hovered a few inches from the hull in its characteristic hexagonal framework. And covered by a second shield similar to the Ancient design in that it allowed two modes, the general shield mode, and the cloak mode.

The military was so impressed with the cloak mode that they ordered the system to be installed on a new spy/ sensor probe being built and dubbed the Observer. This new tech would house a mana capacitor and be constantly cloaked as well as have the most powerful sensors the Tau'ri were able to produce as well as sub-light engines. Allowing it to go through the gate and scan any planet without being detected.

The modular weapon systems were giving the technicians the biggest headache. It was finally decided to install rail guns and the new micro missile systems as standard as well as hard points for the upgraded nuclear naquadah missiles, or any other chosen missile. But the energy weapons could be interchangeable. Four hard points allowed for every energy weapon type the Tau'ri currently had access to two of those hard points would be on turret style blisters on the wings allowing a full field of fire all around the craft.


	26. The first ones

**September 3, 1999**

**The first ones**

Daniel's encounter with the Unas Chaka and the slow process to learn his language was something he had loved. He barely noticed the primitive goa'uld symbiote as it had no purchase against his armor.

Allowing himself to be led to the tribes cave; Chaka had pled for the strange man's life. The alpha male declined and charged Daniel who stood there as the alpha broke his hands against his armored torso. Chaka attacked and defeated the alpha and asked Daniel to join the tribe. Daniel politely refused.

After learning the language (and subsequently teaching the universal translator at the same time) an outpost was set up on the planet to study the goa'uld.

**Sep****tember 10, 1999**

The Aschen were a quiet and calm highly advanced people. Negotiations with them were going smoothly and because the SGC personnel couldn't talk tech trade without all of their ally's present they invited a group through to the SGC.

Biological alarms went off immediately after the wormhole closed. And the room sealed itself. After intense scrutiny the Aschen were ordered to put their travel cases on the ground and to step away from them. With the sheer amount of weapons pointed at them they complied. Detailed sensors detected and showed the results to both the Aschen and the diplomats. The cases had several biological agents inside them that while on their own were exactly what the Aschen said they were. Namely life extension and health improvement medical drugs. When combined they created a drug that caused the recipient to go sterile.

Each drug didn't have to be that way; it was an obvious add on to each of them. The Novin and Asgard sensors in the room could detect and extrapolate the dangers. The Ashen world was dialed and the Aschen diplomats were kicked off world. Nothing was given to them.

**SGC**

General Hammond sat behind his desk in the offices of the former NORAD. His position as defacto head of all things stargate related meant that he no longer had the option of just getting up and wandering out of his door to look at the thing.

He sighed as his new aid lieutenant Dillon Maddox left the latest SGC reports on his desk. He glumly separated them out into their respective piles tech, personnel, and mission reports.

Picking up the mission report pile he began to read through the reports from all SG bases. The ones from the SGC were at the top. The ones from the alpha sight were in the middle and those from the beta sight were sitting on the bottom.

Ignoring the tech reports from Heliopolis and Terra Nova, as well as the production of Naquadah from Abydos for now he dove into the slightly more interesting new contact reports.

Most of them were dull, empty planet as far as we can tell recommend sending observer as soon as production allows.

The other ones were much better.

**SG-5 P4X-347**

The onboard computers detected the energy of the light as it registered to the armors sensors and warned its pilot. After allowing the computer to scan it for a few more minutes the man ordered his men to destroy the device. After a minute or two of energy projectiles impacting the strange light generator it was destroyed. Turning to leave the building their sensors picked up a child.

Eventually after talking to the boy and hearing his story they agreed to try to find him a home.

**P4X-884** Met an alien named Urgo tried to knock us out, our armor protected us we left.

**P5C-768** Planets name is Edora observer sensors indicate a large asteroid shower to hit planet soon. Recommend erecting planetary shield for the natives.

**P2X-416** Advanced tech humans tried to capture us because of religious views (whether they were transplanted humans or born on their world). Our armor protected us as one of us used the power from his suit to power the gate. We left only having fired stun weapons.

**PX-377** Radiation surrounded a crystal skull; sent one of our people out of phase with reality during research; discovered Nick Ballard an apparent relative to Dr. Daniel Jackson knows about it. In the process of turning our person back to normal he wished to be left as a liaison with the giant radioactive Mayan speaking aliens.

**We were Beneath the Surface** of an ice planet the rulers tried to get us to remove our armor so they could somehow remove or modify our memories so we would become part of the slave labor force down there. When they barricaded the normal ways out we used our armor to fly up to a glass dome made to look like ice cover and blasted out way out. We stunned our way toward the stargate and gated home.

**Entity****:**** Gate address restricted** upon dialing the gate and sending a signal through the alpha sight came under attack from some kind of energy creature. Alpha our union crystal was able to talk to it and apologize to it as our signals were interpreted as some kind of attack. Our communication devices are lethal to the native species. The entity left and the world has been added to the do not call list.

**Area 51 research division**

Yuri Matsuda was encouraged by the latest reports from around the world on the testing of formula seventeen. Ten countries tested the formula on a thousand terminally ill patients each. Over ten thousand patients in the test group and less than two percent died. One point seven eight percent died because there illness was just too far advanced the rest died from various allergic reactions from the formula roughly half of them reacting to the minute amount of naquadah itself.

The immune booster formula was a success and all it needed now was a way to mass produce it.

The Japanese immunologist was absolutely stunned when she heard that there was only the one major outbreak from the SGC. When she had moved here to work with the other transferred specialists she like them had several weeks of nasty colds sore throats and other minor illnesses. How the SGC personnel weren't dead was beyond her because she had just come from the other side of the planet they were gallivanting around the galaxy and if rumor were true beyond.


	27. Jolinar's memories

**SGC September 22, 1999**

The Tok'ra high consul decided to withhold the identity in one final test of the Loyalty of the Tau'ri. So when Jolinar and Martouf stepped through the gate they were a little apprehensive.

After several hours of briefings as to the intelligence on the proposed mission, General Landry the new Air force Brigadier General under Hammond and the general with operational command agreed to an extraction.

It was only then when they saw what the SGC and the Tau'ri in general was willing to commit to someone not necessarily their own did they reveal the identity of the Tok'ra agent as Jacob Carter.

The plan hadn't changed but the personnel had with this revelation SG-1 was called in to help with the extraction.

**Above Ne'tu, moon orbiting Sokar's home planet**

Two cloaked cargo ships slowly made their way through the heavily fortified space in the system. Several Ha'tak were orbiting the planet and although none were near the moon the SGC personnel were nervous with all that enemy fire power nearby.

Near, the near molten surface of Ne'tu a ring transporter erupts from the invisible belly of cloaked transport. When they retracted leaving SG-1 standing on the surface in their extreme heat adapted armor.

The ship quickly and quietly flew away in case the transport had been detected. The SG team also quickly sprinted towards a crack in the walls of the hellish moon's prison and slid inside; their armor keeping them from baking almost instantly in the thousand degree oven.

The team snuck through the facility in their red and black heat adapted armor keeping their palm repulsor charged and ready. As it was the only energy weapon available to them except for one disrupter that Major Carter carried. The only other weapon they had was the shredder as it was the only weapon that wasn't explosive and didn't create more heat like other energy weapons would that the suit would have had to deal with.

Being human the team felt for the prisoners being held by Sokar but being military they knew that the mission came first. There were a few guards that they came across but they were quickly and quietly removed until they found their mark. Jacob and Selmak were held in a cage, a few quick blasts from O'Neill's repulsors had the door open and the team began their extraction.

Bynarr the prison master and possessor of the only staff weapon on the planet was in his chambers. Which was exactly where SG-1 needed to go. The blasts from the plasma weapon flew toward the team. Daniel and Sam closed ranks protecting Jacob as the plasma made little effect against the heat resistant armor. The Goa'uld and his security force was shredded and disposed of.

A massive explosion ripped apart Sokar's flag ship as a naquadah enhanced nuclear weapon was ringed aboard from the second cloaked ship. The first cloaked ship positioned itself over the facility as SG-1 accessed the only ring transporter on the surface hidden inside Bynarr's room and ringed up to their escape vessel.

Several weeks later it was discovered that Apophis has somehow survived and taken over Sokar's realm of influence.

**SGC reports Hammond's office**

**P7S-441** an alien creature approached us and attempted to blend in with us. When we confronted him we discovered that his species created a defensive pheromone to hide themselves among their would be enemy's. He was being hunted by some jaffa so we protected him and evacuated him to the rest of his people.

His people were surprised that we would help them without being under the effects of their pheromones.

**P3X-13R** local populace using Unas as slave labor. Team has begun process of negotiations in freeing the Unas. Chaka has agreed to come as a representative of free Unas.

**P3X-4P2** our team found an ancient ziggurat upon exploring the tomb a creature was released from a sarcophagus. A Goa'uld was in control of the creature and possibly driven insane by the sarcophagus. Our armor protected us and our weapons were able to take out the creature when our sensors located it.

Once the creature was taken care of our scientists found The Eye of Tiamat. An alien artifact similar to the Eye of Ra.

**Earth ****undisclosed**** location**

Soldiers were hunkered down behind their barricade as the occasional sniper shot or RPG flew towards them. Several soldiers were grumbling about not getting all the new fancy toys that would make this war go much quicker.

Taking out the leadership of the terrorist nations was a massive headache when lives were on the line.

**Several gun manufacturers across the US**

Materials and blueprints were being delivered to the various weapon construction companies. The designs were for the Intar stun weapon. And the police and government officials were glad to have a non-lethal option available to them that wasn't a one use shot like the Taser gun.

The Intar, once production started would become the weapon of choice for police officers across the country as their primary weapon though they still carried their lethal counterpart. And cities and suburbs across the nation were glad for the choice as well once the minute man bill was scheduled to be enacted.

**Area-51**

The teams of international scientists watched as Jay Felger and his assistant Chloe went through the process of creating a Darksteel ingot for the third time. They were explaining each step as it happened and why it was taken. Once the final massive power surge occurred and a small fist sized lump of black was sitting on the stand. Many scientists clapped.

After the metal cooled he took it to a stand which immediately lit up as he placed the nugget in the alcove.

"And now we charge the mana capacitor and were done."

After the presentation during the meet and greet Jay and Chloe were seen several times catching a quick kiss.

**Area-51 ****research**** room**

A research aid helping Ember noticed that for the past several days that Ember has been twitching uncomfortably in her armor. As the guy approached her and asked if she was okay. She looked at him with a little confusion in her face until she twitched her shoulders.

Her eyes widened as she realized what he was talking about. "I… I need to go home." She said as she got up and headed for the door.


	28. Pretence

**SGC October 29, 1999**

General Hammond made his way down to the SGC Med Bay, someplace he hadn't been in some months, because his promotion to homeworld commander kept him quite a few floors above. However when the CMO of stargate command asks you to join her in regards to their greatest ally he couldn't refuse.

The initial report he received stated that Ember had suddenly dropped everything, boarded a military transport plane, and headed straight for the stargate. This unusual behavior raised questions and had several people stonewall her because of standing policy. She finally allowed herself to be escorted to the Med Bay and she removed her armor but she wouldn't let anyone see her except Dr. Fraiser and Gen. Hammond hence his summons by the good Dr.

Nodding to the Special Forces personnel guarding the door he stood back as one of them opened the door for him and then closed it behind him. Stepping around a partition wall he came upon Janet Fraiser standing in front of her office.

Janet had been staring pensively at the curtain shrouding the last bed in the otherwise empty room when George entered and she turned troubled eyes to her commanding officer. "She quoted our treaty as soon as she entered here, we are not supposed to take any samples, or do any tests on her for fear we will all die like her race did." She quietly spoke.

George nodded then gestured further into the room. "Shall we Doctor?"

George Hammond was a father and grandfather before he was a General so the body language of the girl sitting on the hospital bed before him was screaming "I'm nervous that you're not going to like this."

Her eyes kept darting to his and Janet's faces then promptly down or away, she sat there unconsciously rubbing her arms as her forearms clamped tightly to her abdomen.

Each move of her body was accentuated by the form fitting under suit all armored personnel of the SGC now wore.

George began by gently asking "I'm here. Can you tell us why you need to go through the stargate now?"

Ember glanced up to the man and then down to her hands that had moved to her lap as she fiddled with her fingers a blush creeping up her cheeks.

"There was once a creature on our planet. It was some kind of warm blooded lizard. One of the genetic traits it had was the ability to rapidly regrow lost limbs. A normal human could regrow lost limbs if given several centuries but that was too slow for our scientists. So my first modification was an infusion of that DNA. It had the unwanted side effect of growing unsightly parts of the lizard on my body. That was why I was a failure in the first experiment. After some time I had the extra appendages removed surgically.

Then the second experiment."

Tears started dripping down her cheeks.

"After. Huff… After everyone died I noticed that every few decades my monstrosity, my curse came back."

She unzipped her under suit and turned her back to the two Tau'ri before pulling away the coverings, revealing two misshapen lumps high on her back near her spine behind her shoulder blades.

"The lizard had a set of wings it used to regulate its body temperature; and now I have them too, and I can't get rid of them." She broke down crying unable to speak any more.

George turned his concerned gaze to the Dr. to see her reaction.

Doctor Fraiser gulped as she held in her emotions about how this girl had spent years constantly mutilating herself.

**SGC November 5, 1999**

It took a lot of doing not the least of which was keeping the treaty with the Novin about her genetics but Ember agreed to let her wings grow out. Since her Armor was custom made anyway. Expanding the room under the armor to allow growth was factored into her newest design.

Ember seemed to still be unsure whether or not to believe Tau'ri were sincere about her extra limbs not being some monstrous thing to be cut off. But it also seemed to be that she was willing to give it a try.

Dr. Fraiser never mentioned she also caught a glimpse of a tail poking out at the base of her spine.

**SGC January 21, 2000**

All Tau'ri activity through the gate had been redirected through the other outposts as the Force field backups to the iris were under maintenance and upgrade.

So of course that was the time the Tollan decided to make a call with their ability to phase through solid matter.

When they said that there would be a trial for the body of Skaara SG-1 eagerly agreed to attend. Ember attracted the attention of Narim who was curious as to the people who would uplift such a volatile race. Subsequently she was invited as well.

It was decided that no armor's would be worn as the Tollan were a peaceful race. The only exception being Ember herself.

During the trial of Skaara vs. Klorel Ember agreed to talk with Tollan officials. The Tollan were effectively high tech pacifists and couldn't grasp why the Novin Ember would give her entire tech base to relative strangers. Ember just gave an enigmatic smile and said something about teaching the younger generations.

While Lya the Nox woman passively hid one of the Tollan Ion cannons Ember used her armor to track the Jaffa and went to the first cannon they visited to demonstrate her planetary shield grid emitter.

When the Goa'uld lost the trial, the Goa'uld Zipancna signaled the orbiting Ha'tak. Several shots fire from the ship at once silencing all the ion cannons simultaneously. Teal'c fires the cannon that had been hidden by Lya before Ember could lower the shield above the one she had accidently protected.

The Tollan seeing how well the shield worked became interested in acquiring the tech. Jack being Jack asked for the Ion cannons. Or in his words the big honking space guns. Ember smacked him on the back of the head.

"I will trade the shield tech for the symbiote suppression vest you used in the trial so that I can give it to the Tok'ra so they can confirm when their agents return from deep cover assignments that they have not been uncovered and a Goa'uld counter agent hasn't been placed.

We can also use it to confirm that all Tok'ra teachers on Earth are actually Tok'ra as well." She said to Jack.

The Tollan Curia discussed among themselves and after putting it to their people for a vote agreed.

After weeks of negotiations with the Tok'ra they agreed that it would be much more secure, and less confusing for non Tok'ra, if they wore the vest whenever they were in polite company.


	29. Exedous

**January****2****5, ****2000**

"Unscheduled offworld activation!"

General Landry stepped out of his office into the SGC control room, he watched as the technicians did their jobs seamlessly. The automated weapons and the marines in the gateroom pillboxes were powering up and getting ready.

The sensors and biological countermeasures switched from standby mode to active. And finally as the wormhole established the iris and support forcefield slid and popped into place respectively.

"It's the Tok'ra IDC sir." Walter announced.

The General nodded "Open the Iris and give them the green light."

A half dozen grim faced Tok'ra walked into the SGC, the biological alarms detecting symbiotes gave their friend or foe inquiry. At which point one of the technicians confirmed friend shutting down the weapons. The marines kept their eyes open for any signs of hostility.

The Tok'ra were each wearing the Tollan detector vest, the lights on the chest switching from green when the host was in control to blue when it was the symbiote.

The briefing room was a somber affair as the Tok'ra first thanked the Tau'ri for the detector vests as it helped them flush out three goa'uld spies so far within their ranks. Removing the Goa'uld has already been accomplished but the Tok'ra needed help setting up a trap for the Goa'uld minor system lords who had been monitoring Tok'ra activities.

After much discussion an idea voiced by Samantha Carter to use a stargate to cause the systems sun to supernova was approved by all.

On the Tok'ra homeworld of Vorash the Tok'ra were boarding the Tau'ri Ha'tak that had been orbiting in defense of Abydos. It had picked up one of the three stargates on Earth along the way to use as the new gate on a planet outside of Goa'uld occupied space.

A cloaked tel'tak held position in the system with the stargate in orbit in close proximity to the sun, the three spy hosts had agreed to bait the trap. As the Ha'tak with the Tok'ra aboard left the system the three free hosts sent out their reports to their superiors.

After the first fleet of Ha'tak arrived and shortly before the next one did the cloaked Tel'tak released the shielded stargate as it was dialing out to a known black hole. The ship then powered into hyperspace moments before the star exploded as the black hole stargate sucked off massive amounts of coronal mass.

The first fleet was instantly annihilated, the second fleet dropped out of hyperspace just after the blast wave and didn't fare much better surviving an average of five seconds under the might of the stars raging solar radiation. The third fleet arriving hours later fared much better however only two of their Ha'tak left the high energy nebula neither of which went unscathed.

The Tau'ri dropped their allies off on a desert world not previously part of the gate network, and returned to their picket duties.

**Planet Langara**

SG-α-1 spent several weeks on the planet getting to know the Kelownan faction. When they heard about the artificial element naquadria they were both excited and weary because of how the Kelownans were attempting to use it. Several discreet scans of naquadria followed by several hundred computer simulations had the Tau'ri scientists marveling at the power boost it could give to naquadah power generation.

It wasn't anything remotely near the power they could already create with the darksteel ingot tech but those wouldn't be mass produced for a while.

They weren't overly disappointed when the Kelownans denied allowing them to take a sample and talks ground to a relative halt shortly thereafter, so the negotiations were handed over to the diplomatic corps.

**Earth Antarctica**

The excavation around the site where the second stargate on earth has produced the bodies of two frozen Jaffa and recently, a perfectly preserved young woman.

The nervous scientists quickly hit the panic button quarantining the base when their scans found a nasty little virus. Keeping her frozen and adding several other layers of protection she is moved to the SGC where the Novin anti-bio-hazard device is.

When she is placed in the gate room and the device is activated a collective breath is held as the machine does its job. Once the disease is removed it is discovered that the young woman is still alive. Placing her in a healing pod revives her. Although her physiology is well enhanced her mind is reverted to that of a child most if not all of her memory is gone. Dr. Francine Michaels one of the scientists who found her names the girl Ayiana.

She learns quickly, and eventually learns how old she actually is, but she contents herself to helping those who revived her.

**Pangar**

SG-β-1 arrives on the planet Pangar to negotiate with the peaceful inhabitants. The eager and nervous Pangarans have uncovered their Stargate within the last few decades, but haven't been able to connect to any other worlds. Earth offers to teach them how to use it, and provides them with the addresses to 10 peaceful worlds with which they can make contact.

In exchange, their leader, Dollen, offers them tretonin, a medicine they have developed that makes their immune systems impervious to attack. The Pangarans, or rather the 20 percent of the population that takes regular injections of tretonin, live in perfect health.

The team sends a sample of the drug back to Earth for study, while they continue to get to know the Pangarans. Sarah Gardner visits the dig site where the Stargate was found (near an ancient Goa'uld temple) and meets one of the project's lead archeologists, Zenna Valk. They get along well, but Sarah takes notice when she whispers a vague warning about the tretonin.

Taking the information to her superiors they cross reference the tretonin with the Novin database and discover a startling commonality tretonin is similar to early variations of formula seventeen.

Sarah was not idle while this was going on however and as she was helping Zenna at the excavation site she uncovered a startling truth, Egeria the Tok'ra queen had been imprisoned on this very planet.

When the Tau'ri returned with a way to artificially create a less volatile form of tretonin the Pangarans were much more willing to show the Tau'ri their tretonin facility. Seeing how old and weak Egeria was Sarah Gardner had an unbearable impulse.

Speaking over her shoulder to her commander she said "Put me in a vest as soon as we get home to verify that this is Egeria." as the man turned to ask what she was talking about he noticed her sticking her head into Egeria's tank and the Goa'uld snake swim up off the floor of the tank and into the researchers mouth.

Sarah Gardner then fell to the floor unconscious.

Things moved quickly after that. Sarah was secured in case the queen was not Egeria and transported to Earth. The Pangarens were furious but every dose of the current batch of formula seventeen was sent to the planet as engineers were sent to build an artificial tritonin plant as quickly as possible.

Formula seventeen newly dubbed Tretonin kept the Pangarens alive as the new production plant was created. It was found out that the symbiotes in the old tretonin facility were brain dead, only surviving on instinct and were euthanized.


End file.
